Posts in 🧑‍🚀NSA Culture
Let's Get Together: An Overview of Disco Hangouts

What do you like to do in your free time?  Perhaps you enjoy playing sports, reading at your local library, making bracelets, or hanging out with your friends.  One of the blessings of online school is that it allows you to chat with students on the other side of the globe from the convenience of your bedroom.  However, online school does have a significant downside.  Your parents might not be able to afford the plane tickets you need to meet some of your classmates in person.  Not to worry, though–-there are ways for you to meet with international NorthStar students minus the high cost of traveling. 

Read More
The Message of Mozart’s Requiem

A requiem Mass is a prayer for the dead used in Roman Catholic services (McConnell). From the Latin for “rest,” the requiem meditates on the final judgment and the Christian’s hope of salvation (“English Translation”). There have been many musical settings to this prayer, but among them, the Requiem of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart stands out as one of the greatest of all time.

Read More
Let’s Roleplay: An NSA Connection to the World of Imagination

Imagination, or the ability to think beyond reality to come up with new ideas, is a vital skill in life, though different from academic skills that are normally taught in school. However, it is often difficult to think creatively, especially for those who have not had practice. Enter the world of roleplays.

Read More
NSA’s Student-Athletes: Football Edition

Imagine being a full-time student at NSA, but schoolwork is not all you do. Apart from studying at least five hours per day, you also spend between one to three hours per day training for your sport. This is the reality of a few select NSA students, to whom their sport is just as important as their studies. Student-athletes are a unique group of students who demonstrate how useful NSA can be, and who show a level of dedication that is hard to come across. Let us dive into the most popular sport practiced by this group of people: football, better known in the US as soccer. 

Read More
When High School Feels Like College

About a week ago I met up with a friend over coffee. While she was working on her laptop across from me, I drafted the outline of my recent English essay. My friend said something that caught my attention: “Wow, it’s like you’re living as a college student already.” Surprisingly, it seemed true. Within the past twenty minutes I had booked a taxi, paid the driver, ordered my drink, and begun to work off my phone’s Wi-Fi, all on my own. It got me thinking, what similarities are there between online high school and college students’ day-to-day? What freedoms and responsibilities come from online schools that are carried into college? How can attending an online school prepare students for college life outside academics?

Read More
Clubs and Community

Imagine showing up to a club meeting week after week… except you were the only member. The chairs are empty, the books are unread, and the game pieces are yet to be moved. That doesn’t sound much like a club, does it? According to the Oxford Dictionary, a club is, “An organization for people who share an interest or do a sport or activity together” (Oxford University Press). There is a purpose for meeting, and it is not about the activity. It’s about the people.

Read More
A Deep Dive Into NSA Families

“I just wanna be adopted by anyone and everyone willing to adopt me. I wanna see how many NSA parents I can have.” Yes, you have read that sentence right. No, it is not talking about actual adoptions. Confused yet? Do not worry, we all are. Join me in my quest of trying to explain NSA families in a way that makes sense - and based on the fact that even the main participants are confused, it will not be an easy one.

Read More
'Tis the Season to be Welcoming

“Oh no,” I groaned, staring at my computer in disbelief.  It was my first year at NorthStar Academy, and I felt overwhelmed by all the new skills I needed to learn.  As the 2024 school year kicks off and courses begin, new students stream into our school.  A major problem they face is plugging into NSA’s online community.  Being part of NSA’s international student body provides opportunities to connect with students worldwide.  However, the academy cannot provide a physical school building for students to meet in.  This means the school must provide alternate ways to socialize.

Read More
The World Is Our Campus

The world is an immense place: miles of oceans, mountains that touch the clouds, and beauty that expands across the globe. Over the past few hundred years, humans have continued investigating and discovering more of this beautiful world. That is what the Navigator staff was able to do for this article. For many students, receiving a high-quality education is difficult. However, NorthStar remedies this issue by utilizing technology to connect students and teachers via an online landscape. Additionally, NSA provides many opportunities to build and strengthen relationships in an online environment. The Navigator staff had the opportunity to learn more about the students at NorthStar and how NSA’s unique campus experience accommodates them in their home countries.

Read More
Wildlife Encounters of NSA Faculty

It is time for another wildlife adventure! Last year, I highlighted the wildlife encounters of the students of NSA. But, now it is time for the wildlife encounters of NSA’s faculty to shine. So, prepare yourselves to embark on an adventure around the world to visit the places where NSA’s faculty had some of their most notable wildlife encounters.

Read More
NSA’s Courses: Serving Up Staff Insights

Here at the Navigator, we work to create enjoyable publications full of a wide variety of articles, from the informative to the humorous. But, we are still students, so we have other classes we must work on as well. Let us get a glimpse of the school lives of the Navigator staff by investigating their favorite high school courses, which are as diverse as toppings on a pizza.

Read More
Tears of the Kingdom: Is Nintendo's Latest Legend of Zelda Game All It's Cracked Up to Be?

2023 has been an excellent year for video games. With many extremely popular and well-made releases such as Lethal Company by Zeekers, Spider Man 2 by Insomniac, or Baldur’s Gate 3 by Larian, gamers have been spoiled by the wide variety of high-quality video games that have been coming out this year. However, Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (or TOTK for short) has been hailed by some as the best game of the year. But what makes the game so good, and does it have any flaws? 

Read More
Exploring Student Council

At NorthStar Academy, there are a variety of outlets for students to follow their individual passions and practice valuable skills.  Examples include clubs, online chapel meetings, and esports teams.  However, these outlets would not be able to continue functioning the way they do today without the student council at NorthStar Academy.  While a council of students might at first seem barely related to the workings of NorthStar Academy’s student body, its members do quite a bit for the student body behind the scenes.

Read More
Visual Arts Club Contest Winner

The first ever NorthStar Academy Christmas Art Competition is officially over! We’ve kicked off the first competition with so many wonderful art submissions. They were everything we wished for, and more! We were overwhelmed by the number of entries we received – each one creative and inspiring in its own way. Ultimately, there was one submission that stood out from the rest and had earned the judge’s hearts. Never the less, the large amounts of creativity that we were able to see in each art submission, was astonishing. This was a tough decision to make, to which had sparked some debate between the judges. 

Read More