NOVEMBER 2020 | VOL.

MIDDLE SCHOOL VOICE

Pacific Northern Academy

COVID 19 IMPACT ON

HOCKEY

by Lucas Mansfield
photo by ADN

A space that last year was covered in ice and hockey players is now covered in concrete and cots.
What could cause such a drastic change? Like everything else in 2020 hockey has been affected by
Covid 19. Three of the main areas affected in hockey this year are rink availability, new rules in the
rink and the impact on players.

In march 2020, when the first wave of Covid 19 hit Alaska, the city used the hockey rinks to house
the homeless. The Sullivan Arena, which is the largest rink in Anchorage, will have hundreds of
homeless people housed in it into at least 2021. The Sullivan has been filled to capacity for months.
The city is planning to keep the Sullivan at 8% under capacity by moving high risk individuals into
hotels. There is also a chance that Ben Boeke, a smaller rink next door, will reopen as a mass
shelter to accommodate homeless residents. The parents of hockey players originally had to fight
to get some of the rinks back for this season.

Smaller rinks that are still open have had a change of rules: players are not allowed to get dressed
in locker rooms and players are required to wear masks while getting ready for ice time and after
ice time. The rinks have also changed the cleaning and sanitation of the building. Some things are
still open. For example, in the O'Malley rink the Blue Line Pub is open for business. Some other
rules that anchorage hockey association has applied are designated socal distance points, Covid 19
screening done by individual teams and a committee of medical experts to advise AHA board and
staff. Just because these new rules are implemented does not mean that everybody follows them. A
player that is in the hockey season this year told me that many people do not wear masks well
inside of the hockey rink. Players group up and get dressed in the main area of the rink before ice
time.

Covid-19 has also had an impact on players. This year some families have chosen not to have their
kid do hockey but the virus has had an impact in other ways. Some players get quarantined from
being in contact with someone who had Covid 19, so they have missed games and tournaments.
Recently, in a tournament hosted by the North Stars there was a major outbreak in Covid 19 cases.
More than 300 players, coaches, parents and spectators were at the tournament, all of them were
quarantined, according to Anchorage Daily News. Playing hockey this season puts players at risk of
getting Covid 19.

In conclusion, although many areas of hockey have been impacted by Coronavirus the game is still
being played. Hopefully in 2021, we will see rinks go back from cots and concrete to players and ice.
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Middle School Voice

MASK CHALLENGES

By: Bella Torres

You wake up in the morning and see how beautiful it is outside. Then you get dressed and try to
find a mask that matches your outfit for school. When you get out of the car and put your mask
on you immediately feel the lack of oxygen.

A lot of people are asking the same question. Are masks effective in preventing COVID-19?
Scientists and doctors all say that, yes, masks are indeed effective in preventing COVID-19. If
you have COVID-19, masks help prevent the disease from spreading by blocking your droplets
from going everywhere.

There are a lot of types of masks that are available now. Some masks come in a variety of sizes
and colors so you can choose them depending on how you want them. There are different types
of masks; some are super protective while others are thinner and let you breathe easily.

Have you ever gone outside your house with a mask on, and felt the way that your mask gets all
smelly and soggy? Imagine having to feel like that all day long.

Now that some schools are starting to open again, all the students and faculty have to wear
masks all day long to be able to attend. Most students in schools complain about how hard it is
to wear a mask during school time. Students say how uncomfortable masks are and the lack of
air you get. While students are in P.E they can’t breathe, and their masks get all wet and soggy.
Ms. Mariner, teacher at Pacific Northern Academy, says, “The hardest thing about wearing a
mask is that I have to speak very loudly and I can’t see my students' faces.”

Everybody has to wear a mask to be able to go outside their house because of COVID-19. When
people first started wearing masks, they were so strange and they still are strange because they
are not natural. Wearing masks came to be one of the weirdest things people have had to do
outside their houses. Masks may not be the most comfortable things ever but we are going to
have to wear them. So that we can protect ourselves and all the people around us.
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Middle School Voice

PLASTIC POLLUTION

By: David Sears

Tens of millions of pounds of ocean trash is believed to be floating in and along Central
America’s ocean and coastlines, 4ocean says. Due to minimal infrastructure and multiple river
systems flowing from city centers directly into the oceans, Central America is among the top
producing regions of ocean plastic pollution.

Pollution damages the environment by killing animals and ruining habitat. A lot of organizations
are helping clean up the ocean such as 4OCEAN to help the environment.The Great Pacific
Garbage Patch is about 617,000 square miles.

Over one million marine animals have died from garbage and trash. Fish are the most affected
by plastic pollution. People are helping clean and stop up the plastic but it gets larger slowly.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not the only garbage patch there is the Western Garbage
Patch and the Eastern Garbage Patch.

Micro plastics which are usually not visible and build up to make pollution. Pollution also can
affect fishing because fish are dying from eating plastics and fisherman cannot catch dead fish.
You can help clean up by joining one of the clean up organizations like 4OCEAN.

In Alaska there are some clean up organizations that go out for the whole summer. Currents
form garbage patches. Currents move the garbage to a place where currents intersect from
head on each other and that creates a garbage patch. Negligence is the main cause of pollution
because it mainly comes from household waste.

In a river in Alaska, a man is fishing with his son. The dad feels a giant jerk on
his line, but it’s gone before he can react. What he most likely felt was a fish
that could destroy all of the other species in the river--the Northern Pike.They
are found in some rivers and lakes ,They were originally from the north .

The Northern Pike is an invasive species. Invasive species are organisms that
ALASKA’S FISH
somehow got to a new habitat and can affect the habitat in a bad way. Some
invasive species will hunt other organisms to extinction that belong in a
KILLER
habitat.

Pike were illegally introduced into Alaskans rivers so that people could sport
by Tristan D'Amato
fish for them. Unfortunately, they are very aggressive fish that kill the fish that
naturally live in the river--like salmon.

Alaska Fish and Game has asked people to help hunt the Northern Pike so we
can decrease their numbers and save salmon.How we can kill off the pike is
using chemicals and fishing them. They also charge people who illegally release
them five thousand dollars, so that people will no longer put them where they
don’t belong. Even with these rules, they are still a problem in Alaska.
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Middle School Voice

Imagine buying your ranch in California and 3 weeks later, your neighbor
HOW COVID IS comes running over to you and saying that you need to evacuate because a
forest fire is just up the hill what would you do? Well this happened to
AFFECTING YouTuber DMAXRYNO, 3 weeks after buying his dream ranch it burst into
flames, luckily the fire just grazed the side of his house, and only one
CALIFORNIA chicken out of many animals perished.

AND THEIR
California is the most populated state in America with about 40 million
residents. Right now in California, many forest fires are going on because
of dry weather and climate change is certainly not helping them. These
FIRES.
fires are burning down houses, farms, and everything that gets in its way.
Many people have gone homeless because of the forest fires that are
by Owen Corbin burning their homes down.

The fires right now are dangerous because they are really hard to put out.
Many firefighters have to be together to put up a forest fire. There is a
lack of firefighters due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There are 14,000
firefighters in the USA and almost 1 million people in California have
COVID-19. The California government is asking retired firefighters to help
fight these fires because of the lack of firefighters due to COVID-19. The
lack of firefighters means that it takes more time for the fire to be put out
or worse sometimes they just have to let it burn out which sometimes can
go into a residential area and burn down houses leaving people homeless.
You can help stop forest fires by not throwing cigarette butts into the
forest, keep all flammable objects away from fires, and try to not expose
hot charcoals. You could also help people that have gone homeless

if you find a charity to help people that have lost their homes. You can
track these fires on https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/. People who
intentionally start a forest on fire you can get jail time to up to 5 years and
a fine of up to $250,000 but if you accidentally set a forest on fire you can
get up to 6 months of jail time and a fine of up to $5,000.
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Middle School Voice

Our dog, Sam, had a sad story. When he was a puppy he and his family were
KILL abandoned by his previous owners with no food or water. A shelter called
ARF found them and took them in. ARF stands for Animal Rescue
SHELTERS? Foundation. We had stopped by ARF to look at a Jack Russell Terrier, but as
we were leaving we saw Sam. He was a puppy, and only ten weeks old! I
WHAT’S THE ended up holding him in my arms. My dad texted my mom. What he sent
was a photo of me holding Sam and another text saying “Can we keep him?”
WHOLE TRUTH?
A little bit later we were in the car and guess who was with us? Sam had
come home with us. Now, 9 years later we are with our 9 year old Doxin
by Ella Wolf Rottweiler Sam.

ARF is a “No Kill” shelter. That means that this organization doesn’t
euthanize animals if they have been there for a certain amount of time.
There is another type of shelter. This kind of shelter is designed to keep
animals until they can be adopted, but because of many factors, some
shelters have to euthanize animals who have been there for five to seven
days. Euthanize means that they put the animal down or in other words
they kill it -- hopefully in a peaceful and humane way. According to the
Humane Society of the United States, shelters in the U.S. take in
approximately 6-8 million cats and dogs a year. That's a lot of animals!
According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
(ASPCA) “approximately 1.5 million shelter animals are euthanized (670,000
dogs-860,000 cats).” That would be like if 670,000 people of your
community were not part of your community anymore.

Let’s look back to the 1800s. How did we get to having shelters like this? According to Save our Shelter, “in
1869, the first sanctioned animal shelter in the United States was formed in Pennsylvania by the Women’s
SPCA” (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.) While the shelter system was not specifically
designed to kill animals, it was clear that the overpopulation of pets was too much for the shelter system.

In response to the current practices of euthanizing animals in the shelter system, the ‘No Kill’ movement
started in the 1990s. According to Vin News Service, the ‘No Kill’ movement is based on the idea that “no
healthy cat or dog in the United States should be euthanized simply due to lack of shelter space or
homelessness.” This mission statement may make sense to you but regular shelters can have problems as
well.

Let’s talk about space. If you have a big open field with lots of space for kennels and animals then you
probably aren’t at a shelter. Most shelters don't have tons of space. Animal sanctuaries are run by
nonprofits. This means that shelters have to raise their money from the public to feed and care for every
animal for the rest of their lives or until they get adopted. The ‘No-Kill’ mission also means that shelters
need lots of extra space that shelters don't always have available. These are just some of the reasons why
some shelters kill animals.

It is up to all of us to understand what could happen to our pet when we drop it off at a shelter. It is also
essential that every shelter tells people what their policy is so it is not a secret. It is up to you to think
twice when you are looking for a pet. You can save a life by going to both kinds of shelters. If you go to a
shelter that does not euthanize animals you are giving an animal a home and if they do you are saving them
from dying. One way you can tell if an animal shelter euthanizes animals or not is by going to the shelter’s
website and looking for whether they euthanize animals or not. continued on page6
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Middle School Voice

KILL
continued from page 5
SHELTERS?

WHAT’S THE Take the time to learn more about these shelters and how you can help. As this report
WHOLE TRUTH? highlights, these shelters rely on financial donations to keep their doors open. Consider
by Ella Wolf donating to help animals in need because they need your support. Some shelters that don’t
euthanize animals across the country are:
Austin Pets Alive! InTexas.
City of San Jose Animal Care & Services in California.
Multnomah County Animal Services in Oregon.
Members of the Metro Denver Shelter Alliance in Colorado.
Richmond SPCA in Virginia.
Tompkins County SPCA in New York.
Best Friends Animal Society in Utah.

So snuggle up to your dogs on the couch and pet your cats. Don't forget any other pets you
may have, and together let's stop this cruelty.

SPORTS DURING COVID-19

By: Isabella Mills

Photo By: Alyssum Mormino

Many of us love to watch sports on TV, or support a friend or family member by going to one of his or her
games, but can we still do this during Covid-19? Keeva O’Neel, a 12 year old in Boise, Idaho started
cheerleading this season. She says it has been going well outside, but once girls basketball starts the
cheerleaders will move inside. O’Neel will have to quit cheerleading once they go inside because her mom
won’t let her continue due to Covid precautions.

When the Covid-19 pandemic started back in March 2020, all pro sports were cancelled. Now in the fall,
sports have started again. The NBA (National Basketball Association) has made a “bubble” for all of the
teams to be in so they could play games safely. The National Football League (NFL ) has also started back
up again, and it is preventing ovid-19 in a different way. All coaches have to wear masks and most of the
teams are not allowed to have fans in the stadium.

Many sports for kids have started again too. The Center for Disease Control ( CDC ) recommends that all
athletes wear a mask at all times, stay home if sick, and bring their own equipment. Most sports can easily
follow this rule, but unfortunately some sports are only played inside, or they have close contact with
each other. Still , if you decide to play sports this year , you are encouraged to follow the advice the CDC
priovides us.

Just like Keeva O’Neel, we can try to start to live life normally again, but we should still be cautious about
Covid-19.
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Middle School Voice

One day, not long from now, here in Alaska, an Alaskan family walks
IS IT into one of its favorite restaurants wearing protective face masks,
orders food, goes to a table, and eats a tasty meal. That they may not
GETTING have had in a long time, This may be your family and it may be less
than a year away.
BETTER?
One of the hardest hit industries from Covid 19 is the restaurant and
catering business. At the start of the pandemic, some people thought
by Kenny Nyman that Covid 19 was passed through food, but there is no evidence to
suggest that. It also could be that people do not have the money to
buy food because they lost their jobs and are staying home. There
are a lot of conflicting reasons why restaurants are not doing very
well and I could not find anything about Alaskan restaurants and
catering places online.

Deloitte, which is an accounting company. Conducted a survey about

Chinese catering and restaurant business main stressors. It turns
out that the biggest stressors are wage costs and rent.

From that survey, if rent is a main problem what catering and

restaurant business may have to do is move to a smaller place
because it will cost less and they can have more money for wages at
the start of lockdown. but now, restrictions have been loosened and
people can eat at restaurants outside. That is great for the
restaurants and catering places in Alaska but the ones that had to
downsize can’t service as many customers. This may make some
restaurants have long waits, like my favorite malisada place.
Hopefully if things keep getting better for our Alaskan restaurants
and catering places. We may be walking in our favorite restaurants
to eat some of our favorite foods in the not that distant future.
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Middle School Voice

LGBTQ ACCEPTANCE

By: Nevi Mason

Most people know what the LGBTQ+ community is. If not, the LGBTQ+ community is a large group of
gays, bisexuals, lesbians, transgenders, queers, (ect.)

The LGBTQ+ community is being harassed the moment we speak. People are doxxing this community,
meaning that hackers dig up personal information, the part of doxxing is to expose people while
remaining anonymous. Cyber bullying, real life bullying, or just being harmed in general, mentally and
physically.

We need this to stop.

This is a real story about a femme, gay man who has been bullied for being ‘too girly’ and wasn’t being
accepted for who he is: “I’m a femme, gay man and since kindergarten I’ve always felt accepted by my
friends. But appreciation of my outward expression didn’t reach far past my small friend group. I was
bullied for being ‘too femme’ and to avoid being teased I’d deepen my voice around others. In P.E. I’d
always be told that I “played like a girl” or that I was not good enough to play with the other boys
because I was “too gay.” I was always being labeled as ‘too girly’ for being around so many women and
also shunned from masculine groups because no one wanted to be hit on by a ‘gay boy.’ To the other
boys, my mannerisms were a sort of oddity that they hoped wouldn’t catch on. Even my father advised
me to “act more like a man” rather than more like myself.”

“Bullying puts youth at increased risk for depression, suicidal ideation, misuse of drugs and alcohol,
risky sexual behavior, and can affect academics as well. For LGBTQ youth, that risk is even higher.”

This is sad because people are getting judged for being themself. As the article has shown most of the
LGBTQ+ bullying happens in school property and online.

Bullying any person can result in suicide, overdose, deppresion, overuse of alcohol, and other harmfull
methods.

If we really want LGBTQ+ bullying to stop we should start off by doing these deeds to help:
Build strong connections with LGBTQ youth to demonstrate acceptance and keep the lines of
communication open. Often, LGBTQ youth feel rejected. It is important for them to know that their
families, friends, schools, and communities support them.
Accept LBGTQ youth as they are, regardless of how they identify, reveal, or conceal their sexual
identity.
Protect all youth’s privacy. Be careful not to disclose or discuss sexual identity issues with parents
or anyone else, without the young person’s prior permission, unless there is an immediate threat to
their safety or wellbeing.
Provide interpersonal support to students by providing a safe place to talk about their sexual
identity and navigate decisions about disclosing or concealing it with others.
Establish a safe environment at school. Schools can send a message that no one should be treated
differently because of who they are or are perceived to be. Add sexual orientation and gender
identity protection to school anti-discrimination policies. continued on page 9
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Middle School Voice

Continued from page 8

LGBTQ
Create Gay-Straight
Alliances (GSAs). GSAs help
create safer schools.
Schools must allow these
groups if they have other
“non-curricular” clubs or
groups. Learn more about
the right to form a GSA
under the Equal Access Act.
Conduct social-emotional
learning activities in school
to foster peer-relationships
and help students develop
empathy.

We should believe that we can

stop LGBTQ+ bullying and make
the world become safer for
SAVE THE TURTLES
LGBTQ+

by Noah Schmittinger
Say that you're out shopping at your local grocery store, running errands. You finish your
shopping and carry your plastic bags full of food to your car. You drive home. When you get
there you unload your groceries and throw away your plastic bags. Sound familiar? It's
Wednesday now and you take out the trash. The garbage truck takes it to a landfill. The next
day there is a massive windstorm and many pieces of trash (including your plastic bags) are
blown into the water. From there a hungry turtle mistakes your plastic bag for a jellyfish and
eats it .

Sadly, this is not an uncommon incident. This is a recurring phenomenon where a turtle will see
a plastic bag floating on the surface of the water and think that it is a jellyfish. And in an ocean
that has 14 billion pounds of plastic, it's not hard for a turtle to mistake plastic for food. As of
today, plastic waste takes up nearly ten percent of the ocean, according to the National Marine
Debris Monitoring Program. It gets worse, when plastic enters the body of a sea turtle it can
cause many things that often lead to death. Every year about 1,000 sea turtle deaths are related
to plastic pollution. And that number continues to grow.

Every day sea turtles are dying at the hands of plastic and little is being done to stop it. Sea
turtles are amazing animals that are great for the underwater environment, being forced to
endure the onslaught of plastic pollution. However, sea turtles are not doomed. There are many
ways to help them, such as donating to a marine conservation society or instead of using a
plastic water bottle buy a metal one such as a Hydro Flask. It can also be as simple as just
recycling or using reusable grocery bags , so the plastic you buy doesn't end up in the stomach
of a turtle.
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Middle School Voice

CORAL REEFS

By: Wyatt Brunswick

Is coral a plant or animal? While most people think that coral is a plant, upon closer inspection you will find that coral
is an animal. Corals do, however, have a symbiotic relationship with a type of algae called zooxanthellae (zo-ah-zan-
thell-ay). While zooxanthellae turn sunlight into energy and turn carbon dioxide (or CO2) from the coral into oxygen
(O2), they also provide the coral with oxygen and food. While they both benefit from each other, they actually can’t
live without each other.

Coral reefs are entire ecosystems with vibrant colors, reasons that over 1 billion people have food or jobs, places
where cures for cancer can be found, natural barriers that protect coasts, exa mples of biodiversity, homes to fish and
(certain) aquatic mammals, and popular vacation spots.

If a coral reef dies, people can lose their jobs and not have/have less food. The animals that live in the coral reef could
die or go homeless.

The reasons that a coral reef dies are warming waters, illegal collecting, physical destruction, ocean acidification, and
pollution. But what can coral reefs dying cause? Well, it can cause people to make hoaxes about coral reefs dying, but
at the same time, it can cause people to assume that coral reefs are dying.

But how do coral reefs affect people who live nowhere near a coral reef? Well, coral reefs can only be found in the
ocean, which is made of water, yet that water is still a part of the water cycle, or the way water is moved around our
planet, of which is the reason there is evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. Humans are roughly 60% water,
and without water, we wouldn’t have life on earth. But if unregulated, chemicals from factories or farms can travel in
surface runoff(which is a part of the water cycle), then reach large bodies of water, like the ocean, while the same
rules apply for trash and litter. While chemicals from one factory or one plastic bag may seem like only a small deal
compared to how huge the ocean is, it’s never just one. But what is it called when zooxanthellae leaves coral? Well,
temperature changes as little as one degree, changes in light, and changes to nutrients can stress zooxanthellae and
make it leave a coral reef.

Ocean acidification is when the ocean absorbs CO2, causing the CO2 to bond with water molecules and carbonate ions
to form bicarbonate, leaving less carbonate for calcium to bond with, causing less calcium carbonate, and without
calcium carbonate, animals that have calcium carbonate shells can have weakened shells, which means less protection
from predators,less support if the shell is part of a larger structure, and/or more susceptibility to damage (corals have
calcium carbonate shells).

There is another way that all people are affected by coral reefs, which is air, which almost all animals need to survive.
Take a deep breath. Now take 19 more. Those 20 breaths you just took? Fourteen of them were all thanks to the ocean.
While they cover about 8% of the earth's surface, trees only produce 30-40% of the earth’s oxygen. The other 60-70%
of the earth’s oxygen is produced by microscopic organisms(or living things) called phytoplankton, along with other
small organisms called algae.

Here are some examples of how you can help coral reefs survive:Walk, bike, or carpool to help reduce the amount
of CO2 in the atmosphere (which can also help stop global warming). Use a reusable water bottle, lunch box, or
snack bag to reduce the amount of plastic you use/throw away. Get your school or house to be “zero waste” by
making a recycling and/or composting program, then starting it. Plant a tree, participate in a trail and/or beach
cleanup, or organize an event for your friends and/or family.

Some ways to help solve the problem of pollution are“The three “Rs ``'', which are reduce (reduce the amount of waste
that you generate), reuse (reuse as many things as you can), and recycle (recycle everything else), and beyond that,
you can encourage others to do the same and/or pick up trash when you see it.