Myers Park Hoofprint

The Myers Park High School Newspaper

Vrinda Mahajan

Take a Hike

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North Carolina is filled with a variety of landscapes including mountains, rivers and forests making it a great place for hiking. Even within Charlotte you can find twenty different nature preserves run by our Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation. If you’re looking for nearby hikes to conquer as the weather starts to warm up, here are some local favorites. 

The Rocky Face Mountain Recreation Area is situated on the Brushy Mountains in Alexander County, about an hour’s drive from Charlotte. This park has 5 miles of trails scaling Rocky Face Mountain, offering sweeping views of the charming North Carolina countryside from a height of 600 feet. The location has a paved walking track, short rocky cliffs suitable for rock climbing, and a playground. Their trails range in difficulty so visitors of all ability levels can decide the level of challenge they’d like on their hike. 

Another great destination is the Buffalo Creek Preserve on Mount Pleasant in Cabarrus County. The trail features lush greenery, bridges, dirt trails, a restored piedmont oak savannah forest, farmland, and of course, creeks. Visitors can hike right through local farmland, where you can witness the growth of hay and grain. Plus, the piedmont oak savannah forest is a vital habitat for nesting birds and wildlife, therefore  Catawba Land Conservancy is overseeing their restoration continuously. The hike is roughly 2 miles one way. It is very mountain biker-friendly and only 45 minutes from Charlotte by car!

Crowders State Mountain Park, located in Gaston County, is home to two mountain peaks with amazing views of the surrounding forested area. The park is actually connected to two other parks, Kings Mountain State Park and Kings Mountain National Military Park, by the Ridgeline Trail. Both of these parks are located in South Carolina! Crowders is known for its variety of birds, making it popular among birdwatchers. The site offers camping, paddling, fishing, and rock climbing. It also has amenities such as a visitors center and amphitheater. The park is around 35 minutes away from Charlotte by car. 

South Mountains State Park is another popular hiking destination covering 18,000 acres of the Appalachian Mountains. Its High Shoals Falls are especially popular among visitors, partially due to their convenient proximity to the parking deck, but also because of the picturesque wooden bridges that span the trail loop around the series of waterfalls, one having an 80 foot drop! This loop is around 2.7 miles long. In total, the park has around 50 miles worth of trails, suited for hikers, mountain bikers, and horseback riders. This destination is roughly 1 hour and 15 minutes away from Charlotte by car. 

Boone’s cave park is great for hikers who love history! Located in Davidson County, about an hour from Charlotte, and containing 6 miles worth of trails, this destination provides a glance into European colonialism in the Americas. A cabin built in 1792 is recreated on the park grounds. Of course, the large cave itself is also a notable feature of the park that attracts visitors, and it is around 140 feet deep. There are multiple smaller caves as well, but they are unfortunately too small for visitors to explore. The location includes a wide variety of trails, ranging from the more challenging and steep to the more wide roads suited for beginners or casual hikers. There is also a river at the location and a great range of biodiversity, particularly flora. However, hikers warn about the abundance of bugs, so be sure to bring insect repellent!

North Carolina is a great state for hiking, with an abundance of trails within an hour radius of Charlotte. These trails are perfect for those wanting to explore Carolina’s natural beauty and biodiversity, and only provide a small glimpse into the large variety of hiking options available!

Logic Games

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Online games are an MP favorite when students are bored in class. Snake, Jump, you name it! However, recently, when I look at the computer screens around me, these playful games are being replaced with more intellectual games. Crosswords, Sudokus, Chess, Wordle, and 2048 are all popular games MP students have turned to to keep themselves entertained during especially draining classes. 

When newspapers and magazines served as the primary source of news, the daily crosswords were a particularly popular form of entertainment. However, as online news sources replaced newspapers, crosswords and other puzzles meant to be played on paper were replaced with more high-tech games. Over the past few years, however, these mind games have been switching to online forums. To achieve this, they have had to adapt their classic games to not only appeal to the new generation but also to fit the new medium. 

One news source that has jumped on this popular trend is the New York Times. From buying Wordle to creating the New York Times Mini back in 2014, they know how to keep their new audience engaged. Keeping the daily aspect of the puzzle by introducing a new one every day helps to keep people interested, since there is only one puzzle and players can “compete” with their friends. Competition, in fact, could be a large reason these games are re-emerging. Online chess games, which, similar to crosswords, are suddenly popular once again, allow students to compete with their friends. Plus, these puzzles are incredibly addicting. We get a huge dopamine boost when we complete a puzzle, and several small ones as we work towards its completion. It’s this aspect of competition and dopamine rush that keeps so many people returning to their daily puzzles. Personally, I love this new trend because I love competing with my friends to complete puzzles first, and I’m a huge fan of crossword puzzles!

Logic games are more than just a fun pastime, however, whether users know this or not. Psychology reveals that our brains actually benefit from this hobby. According to Progress Lifeline, “working on a puzzle reinforces connections between brain cells, improves mental speed and is an effective way to improve short-term memory”. Additional potential benefits include increased IQ, prevention of cognitive diseases such as Alzhiemer’s and Dementia, lower stress levels, and improved visio-spatial reasoning. 

So, this trend is both fun and beneficial.

Wisteria Magazine

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Wisteria Magazine is a non-profit organization that publishes print magazines focusing on social justice. With many of its contributors and founders based in Charlotte, NC, Wisteria Magazine has a substantial local following! Katarina Sparling, a senior here at Myers Park, is the chief creative officer of the organization. 

Wisteria’s mission is evident in its origin. Katarina says it was founded by Morgan Lee around the summer of 2020, during the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, “because there was a lot of demand to get involved in social justice work, but safely, because it was in the middle of the pandemic… doing a magazine online and through social media was a really accessible way for people to get involved.” Katarina was one of the first members of the Wisteria Magazine team, joining the founding team alongside Morgan and others that summer. She started out with the social media team which she eventually took over and ran for over a year, before assuming her current role of chief creative officer. Katarina sums up Wisteria Magazine’s goal as to bring “awareness to these underrepresented issues and underrepresented stories through art and writing.” 

Initially, Wisteria Magazine focused heavily on current events and operated as a news source. Katarina says, however, that “realistically we could never be the first people to get that information, we’d never be the first to post it, and we’d never have the same depth of explanation that, like, CNN could have.” Plus, when schools went back in session, members found they did not have enough time to commit to Wisteria Magazine as it was set up then since it demanded essentially being online all the time. 

Wisteria went on a brief hiatus and came back rebranded. “So we rebranded it to be a little more focused on our mission, which is storytelling and art and sharing the stories of marginalized communities through art in the print magazine, and a little less on the idea of trying to communicate current events through Instagram. And when we made that change, Marmalade was kind of at the center of it,” Katarina says. Marmalade is a mini-magazine, the first one that Wisteria Magazine released post-rebranding. With the tagline, “made from bitter orange, yet makes a sweet spread”, the magazine takes its theme seriously. Inspired by many Wisteria members leaving for college, the magazine is centered around “this idea of leaving behind youth, and the transition from summer to fall”, as Katarina puts it. Its also “a lot more focused on short form poetry and art. Our past issues had been more focused on articles and longer form interviews, which has its own value, it was just not what we wanted to be doing anymore to that extent.” Not to mention, Marmalade is a lot physically smaller than the previously released issues, being roughly half the size of those. This smaller package continues to move Wisteria’s image away from that of a news source and more toward its mission of personalized art and storytelling. Dive into artistic nostalgia with your own copy of Marmalade, which can be purchased for $10.00 on the Wisteria Magazine website, www.wisteriamagazine.org.

Wisteria Magazine is currently producing a new issue called the Love Zine, which they’re aiming to release around early-mid February. They’re also planning on dropping shirts to go along with it, a fundraising technique that they used prior to releasing Marmalade. They sell around 25 shirts, which are thrifted and dyed with non-toxic, solarfast dye from a small business to keep the practice as sustainable as possible. 

If you’re looking for an outlet to learn about social justice issues, look no further than Wisteria Magazine—and support a few creative Myers Park students in the process!

Break the Cycle

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The phrase “period poverty” encapsulates the lack of access to feminine period products and the issues that are associated with it. Many issues arise in terms of the accessibility of menstrual supplies. Firstly, they can be a financial burden, as period products can be expensive. Secondly, some developing countries may not even sell disposable supplies such as pads and tampons, leaving women to develop homemade supplies. These homemade supplies can be made from paper, cotton, cloth rags, or leaves, which threatens the menstruator’s health and can cause infections. Grace Clarke, an assistant researcher at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, attended school in Monrovia, Liberia, and stated of her experience, “I personally had instances when the only means to manage my menstrual cycle was to use old clothes or tissue because my family couldn’t afford to purchase menstrual products.”

However, in developing countries, the issues don’t stop there. Menstrual cycles can prevent people from attending school for numerous reasons. For one, homemade supplies require frequent changing. Secondly, many schools lack bathrooms with working water/toilets and adequate privacy, making managing menstruation difficult for female students. As a result, attending school becomes a challenge. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization reported in 2014 that one out of every ten menstruating youth does not attend school during their cycle as a result of inadequate access to period products. 

The problem is dire in the United States, too. In 2021, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and George Mason University conducted a nationwide survey and found that 10% of college students are unable to afford menstrual supplies, resulting in increased skipped classes and amounts of self-reported depression. According to the Journal of Global Health Reports, 16.9 million people who menstruate in the US live in poverty, and two-thirds of the 16.9 million low-income women in the US couldn’t afford menstrual products over the past year. Further, half of this demographic had to choose between menstrual products and food. The tax on period products also rose from a relatively lower 4.7% to a staggering 10% in 2019, increasing the financial burden of menstrual products. Since period poverty affects mainly low income communities/developing countries, a disproportionate amount of those affected by period poverty are racial minorities. Therefore, period poverty can also be a racial issue. 

During the peak of the COVID pandemic when public facilities were shut down, many people lost their only access to period products, which were through educational facilities and community centers. In addition, losses of income due to job loss during the pandemic may have made purchasing menstrual products increasingly difficult for individuals. 

Equal rights for women are a relatively new concept in application, and arguably have not been accomplished fully in any region of the world. In developed countries, women may face issues such as the wage gap and employment discrimination, however in developing countries, women may be forced into labor or housework rather than receiving an education. While the world is working to overcome these disparities, period poverty continues to be a setback for women’s rights. Women have been fighting for centuries to have access to education and the ability to join the workforce, and for these rights to continue to be unequally forsaken due to menstruation is inherently sexist. 

By remaining silent about these struggles, society remains complicit to a male-dominated culture. This phenomenon is widely unacknowledged, likely because there is still a lot of hesitancy around discussing menstruation. What individuals can do to continue to work toward a more just world is raise awareness about period poverty, and take action when possible, such as donating to period product drives at a local community center or school. Any efforts can lessen the impacts of period poverty!

Innovation Barn

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Charlotte is breaking barriers when it comes to sustainability with the Innovation Barn! Located at 932 Seigle Ave, the Innovation Barn is a former horse barn transformed into a functional building adorned with art made from repurposed trash. Inside, there are shelves filled with plants alongside a giant fish tank, a closed room filled with black soldier flies, and vertical herb gardens. The Innovation Barn is a Charlotte government initiative for a circular economy. This model utilizes reuse, local consumption/production, and recycling to keep materials and products in circulation for as long as possible, thereby minimizing excessive manufacturing and the waste associated with it. The ultimate goal of a circular economy is to not use new materials; instead, preexisting materials are constantly recycled, terminating the need for the production of new items and creating a zero-waste city. 

So what is the Innovation Barn, and how does it strive to implement this model in Charlotte? Envision Charlotte, which is the non-profit organization that established the Innovation Barn, says on its website that the Innovation Barn is “a combination of entrepreneurial businesses, zero-waste initiatives, and a space to convene groups in order to learn more about and implement circular projects.” They currently have many of these projects running. 

For one, they have an aquaponics lab. Aquaponics is a great example of circular production; it involves raising fish in a closed environment—using flies as food and producing nutrient-rich water—and the growing of plants. The nutrient-rich water is used to water the plants, causing faster germination. Further, the food grown from this aquaponics lab is then used in their kitchen—where they hold lessons on meal planning and how to cook sustainably—and their cafe—which is zero waste and uses locally sourced ingredients. 

The flies used to feed the fish are part of another project at the barn— an experiment that uses black soldier flies to compost. This experiment intends to repurpose local food waste and uses any remaining food scraps from their kitchen in the process. The Innovation Barn raises the fly larvae, which break down the compost. These flies are also used to feed the fish, providing them with nutrients and continuing the process of a circular economy. The carbon dioxide generated by the flies is also used by the plants to stimulate growth. 

The Innovation Barn also recycles many types of plastic that are not accepted by Charlotte recycling. They accept plastic donations in bins outside of their building. The plastics are grinded down and upcycled, contributing to local recycling efforts and efficiency. 

Beyond these exciting projects, the Innovation Barn is home to several local sustainability businesses. One such business is called Urban Lumber, which uses trees from the Charlotte biodiversity to create furniture. Their slogan is “reducing waste by repurposing local Carolina trees to their upcycled prime,” and they have diverted 7,785,000 pounds of wood from landfills according to their website. They have a showroom at the Innovation Barn, where they can promote their products to local environmentalists and consumers. 

Another goal of the Innovation Barn is to serve as an educational center. Tours are easily accessible and are offered twice a week (Tuesdays at 1:30 P.M. and Fridays at 10:30 A.M.). They also offer group tours to schools and corporate groups. Every Saturday from 1-4 P.M., they host a special event: the Market at the Innovation Barn, which partners with the Uptown Farmers Market to bring fresh, local produce to Charlotte environmentalists. The goal is to “allow vendors at Uptown Market more time to sell their products should they have excess”, according to their website, the ultimate aim being to reduce food wastage. 

Between the projects and businesses available, the Innovation Barn is a must-see for all sustainability lovers in Charlotte, and a commendable first step towards a zero-waste city!

Creative Writing Club

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Creative Writing Club is a student organization at Myers Park that gathers to share and improve their writing skills and original work. Through collaboration, instruction, and practice, the members are able to foster their writing abilities and express their emotions and creativity through this outlet. A typical meeting begins with going over a few writing prompts to ignite inspiration, followed by a writing lesson. The club covers a wide variety of topics at each meeting and sometimes the members collaborate to create new characters together. 

The president of the club, Catherine Munroe, says her favorite thing about the Creative Writing Club is “getting to hear everyone’s story and see how excited they get to add to the club’s lesson”. This club is important not only to its members but to the Myers Park community as a whole because “it can be used as a creative outlet for many students as well as a way to meet new writers and learn new tips”, Catherine says. 

One form of writing that the club practices is poetry. When asked why poetry is important, Catherine replied “it’s a way to dump emotions out without there having to be a certain setup or background lore, characters, scenes, etc. It shows the raw human emotions that can be difficult to describe”. The writing club is a great creative outlet for any students at MPHS who may be interested in joining, and showcases the wonderful work that can be produced when creativity and academics are explored jointly. 

The following collection of poems showcases the work of the Myers Park Creative Writing Club. 

The time we had

Was pretty rad

The time we spent

Made me a gent

The way you laughed

Made me smile

Back then for you,

I would run miles.

The day then came,

When I confessed

Ever since then,

I have repressed

Though all my feelings

Are locked away

I still regret

And wish you stayed. 

– Anonymous

The sun was setting on the horizon. A gentle breeze flowed through the valley. They say by the tree. Although you tried to focus on the sunset, you couldn’t take your eyes off of them. They looked so elegant leaning against a tree. Their hair swaying in the wind. “Hey, I love you.” They say. A comfortable silence fills the air. You’ve been waiting for this to happen. “Romantically?” You ask hesitantly. They look at you. “No. I’ve always loved you as a friend, and I always will.” Your heart drops to your stomach. You struggle to hold back the overwhelming wave of tears. You choke on your words as you get out the words. “I love you too…”

– Anonymous 

The sky is grey with rolling black clouds

The cold winds picked up shaking the trees, causing their screams to fall out

The ravens flying overhead, beady eyes dripping their sins onto your soul 

The hitchhiker’s eyes have become soulless, I think he’s dead. 

The houses on my street are creaking, the sounds vibrating the air

The screams are filling the air, glass shattering, wood splitting

The floors creak from heavy steps and objects

Metal clanking around

The screams have gone silent

The red is flowing

The sound of bones cracking and the air from the body escaping causes a sweet gurgling sound

The hitchhiker is now laid out on the ground, skin turned blue

The ravens are gone, moving on to the next town

The trees are finally silent and the wind has died down

The black clouds now cover the small town

– Catherine Munroe

Water runs clear now

Yet you stay fresh in ember

Times gone with the wind

– Dani Lombardi

“Please just laugh with me”

No one’s ever asked me that 

“Please don’t leave again–”

“Of course love, never again”

Lies of warm nights passed 

– Dani Lombardi

Disney vs. Actors

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“The lawsuit is especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the Covid-19 pandemic,” Disney replied to Scarlett Johansson’s lawsuit, which claimed that not receiving additional compensation from the Disney + release of Black Widow was a contract violation. Although it wasn’t a violation, her lawsuit led to an interesting debate: should actors receive additional compensation for the release of their movies on Disney+? 

The answer is no. COVID-19 left box office revenue dropping rapidly. Black Widow, released this July, had the lowest total ticket sales for any Marvel Studios release since 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. The most logical explanation for this staggering drop in revenue is the crippling effect of the pandemic on the movie industry. Rebecca Rubin reported for Variety that as of early September 2021, “the overall domestic box office has reached $1.05 billion in ticket sales, down 42.3% from 2020 and down 81.3% from 2019.” The movie industry took a deep plummet after the pandemic hit, and it will take years to recover from it. The pandemic is still a threat, meaning that the box office revenues may fluctuate in the coming year. Once the pandemic is over, it should slowly stabilize. 

As box office revenues drop, streaming services are thriving. People turned to virtual, at-home entertainment during quarantine, and streaming services  like Disney+, YouTube, and Netflix grew in popularity. Brad Adgate wrote about the pandemic/entertainment correlation for Forbes, explaining that “With shut-downs occurring throughout the globe, consumers relied on digital (video-on-demand, streaming video and electronic sell through) for entertainment. The trend toward digital entertainment was accelerated in 2020 as revenue climbed to $61.8 billion, an increase of 31%.” Increased use of streaming services plus decreased viewership of movies in theatres is a very simple equation, and the best answer is to put movies on streaming services. 

This increased use of digital entertainment should have no impact on actors’ pay. Actors are compensated for the filming of a movie and the release of that movie. The platforms on which the film is released, whether they are movie theatres or streaming services, are of no relevance to their paychecks. Production companies like Disney have the right to release their movie by whatever means will make it the most successful– which, currently, are digital streaming services– and actors are not deserving of additional compensation when that release happens. The controversy around Disney’s compensation of their actors is a baseless argument that ignores the current state of the movie industry.

Education in a Post-Covid World

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Most Americans would agree that COVID-19 has affected many aspects of their lives. One of these aspects has been in the spotlight since the very beginning: education. After over a year of virtual learning,  the return to in-person learning was not a smooth transition for  many students and teachers.  For some teachers, lesson plans have had to be switched back and forth between a virtual and in-person setting since March 2020. During full-remote learning , teaching was difficult. Carefully planned lessons were met with black screens, internet instability, and plenty of incomplete– or worse, unattempted– assignments. 

Virtual learning started a trend that has transformed conventional lesson formats. Teachers nationwide had to find new, more flexible methods to engage with students. These unique strategies derived from online learning have also managed to significantly benefit in-person learning. Kate Lee, director of choirs at a local Park Ridge, Illinois, high school, had to cancel four choir concerts due to the Coronavirus. With conventional curriculum not being an option, she decided to assess her students another way. She asked her classes to select a personally meaningful song to perform. The community had a high number of immigrants, and Kate was moved by the unique songs. “Lee decided that going forward, she won’t just assign music and teach students how to perform it,” Reporter Marcella Bombardieri wrote for Politico.  Kate Lee’s story is just one of many examples of educators discovering the difference between assignments and learning. Lessons are being rethought like never before, making up for the lost year of unproductive online-learning by emphasizing the importance of the personal aspect that so many of us missed during the quarantine period. 

After learning online  for so long, many students feel relieved to be back to in-person education. However, virtual learning may be here to stay. A poll conducted by Politico and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health shared that 29 percent of parents want their child to be in a remote or hybrid learning plan for the coming school year.  RAND Corporation’s survey of school districts revealed that by the fall of 2020, one out of five schools were either actively planning or considering implementing a virtual learning program post-COVID. There are hundreds of reasons why students may be choosing an online educational system instead of an in-person one. To name a few, virtual learning can better accommodate students who have young children, disabilities, jobs, or do not have access to transportation. Generally, online learning eliminates the physical obstacles that the average American student may face with regard to commute and availability. It is also simply just an easier way for some students to learn.

For those students who do return to school, they may come back to better buildings. Biden’s budget for the 2022-23 year proposes $102.8 billion in funds for K-12 schools. This is nearly a 30 million dollar increase from our previous education budget. And schools are certainly in desperate need of the money. The Government Accountability Office found that nearly 4 out of 10 of America’s school districts have poor air quality and circulation (correlated to air conditioning and/or ventilation systems). Studies show that poor air quality harms  academic performance. Additionally, Covid-19 is an airborne virus, so poor air circulation indoors is an obvious health hazard. The pandemic has highlighted the importance of building quality, and the influx of government funds will likely show some much needed improvements in public schools across the country. 

The pandemic, in addition to its other devastations, deconstructed our educational systems. In the process, it has called attention to the faults of the system. Now, educators, politicians, and students are working together to make schooling more productive than ever.