Session 7 Week 5 in Review

Elementary Studio

Only three weeks remaining! As we quickly approach the end of the school year, our days are jampacked in the Elementary Studio! Learners are continuing to make significant progress on their badge plans while finalizing this session’s signature learning experiences. During Quest, learners finalized their prototypes in preparation for exhibition on Tuesday and created their presentations that will be shown during the exhibition. During Story Arts, learners finalized their rollout plans, shared them with their peers for feedback, and attended the Story Arts Live Event! At the event, learners from variety of schools were able to showcase their work and receive feedback from the Story Arts team. The highlight of our week was beginning the countdown to graduation! These Elementary learners are extremely excited for this event because this will be majority of their first time meeting each other in person! The elementary studio has been looking forward to this day the entire school year! The wait is almost over!

Middle School Studio

Week five has come to a close, with only a week left of our last session of the year! It’s hard to believe this time next week, some learners will have graduated at Commencement, while others will be preparing for their After-Action Reviews! This week in the Middle School Studio, we had launches by Addison on the Titanic, Kai on Deforestation, and a Fascinating Friday about oceans by Maggie. Our check-ins this week really narrowed in on each learner’s Badge Plan as they made decisions about how to best utilize their Core Skills time as we wrap up Session 7!Quest this week was 100% focused on developing great Exhibition projects and presentations. Learners had ample work time to spend creating and developing their projects in collaboration with a conservation organization or expert. We also build in some time for learners to share the details of their projects and get in depth feedback and suggestions on their projects. The end of the week, as projects were being finished, learners shifted gears towards building a presentation to share their projects at the Exhibition next Tuesday.This week’s Civilization was all about reflecting on Manifest Destiny. Over the course of the session, we’ve seen many examples of how the mindset of superiority affected different historical events in the U.S. We made connections with similar mindsets in other parts of the world, such as the Holocaust. Learners reflected about Manifest Destiny this week by writing an essay about if they think the Manifest Destiny mindset still appears today in the modern world, in America or beyond, and supported their opinion with evidence.To help prepare for next week’s live debate in Story Arts, our learners spent their entire work time creating their debate outline. Learners joined breakout rooms with other learners who will also be arguing the same Motion and side as them to collaborate, share ideas, and get feedback as they put the finishing touches on their debates. Researching and creating a debate on an assigned Motion is a lot of hard work, but we know our learners are going to shine next week in their debates!

High School Studio

It’s the second to last week of the school year and we had a great week in the High School Studio. During Circles, learners reflected on their personal and academic growth from the past year, and we prepared for and discussed After Action Reviews during Wednesday’s Morning Launch. Max gave a launch on the Mastery Credit Practicals on Monday, to better orient learners to this unique graduation requirement. Learners got to see a Mastery Credit Practical in action on Thursday morning, as Nick presented on several Mastery Credits. Lastly, on Friday, Cohen led us in a Socratic Launch on Golf, and we all learned a great deal about this sport.Quest time this week was spent working on Green Chemistry projects, and preparing for the exhibition next week. Learners got to create their own projects this session, focusing on one of the 12 principles of Green Chemistry. We look forward to the exhibition on Tuesday!This week’s Civilization was all about reflecting on Manifest Destiny. Over the course of the session, we’ve seen many examples of how the mindset of superiority affected different historical events in the U.S. We made connections with similar mindsets in other parts of the world, such as the Holocaust. Learners reflected about Manifest Destiny this week by writing an essay about if they think the Manifest Destiny mindset still appears today in the modern world, in America or beyond, and supported their opinion with evidence.To help prepare for next week’s live debate in Story Arts, our learners spent their entire work time creating their debate outline. Learners joined breakout rooms with other learners who will also be arguing the same Motion and side as them to collaborate, share ideas, and get feedback as they put the finishing touches on their debates. Researching and creating a debate on an assigned Motion is a lot of hard work, but we know our learners are going to shine next week in their debates!