Session 7 Week 2 in Review

Elementary Studio

"Science is fun. Science is curiosity. We all have natural curiosity. Science is a process of investigating. It's posing questions and coming up with a method. It's delving in." -Sally RideWhat a fun week we’ve had in the Elementary Studio! Thank you, Marcos and Andres, high school learners, for leading the Elementary Studio in Story Arts and Civilization while I was away at a conference. The elementary learners appreciated being led by an older learner. I’m thankful you both enjoyed the experience as well. During Quest, we explored STEM by participating in an egg drop challenge, earthquake simulation, and cleaning oil spills. For each of these challenges, learners were able to be creative, have fun, make predictions and observations, and most importantly, use their hands to learn about science! We concluded our week by receiving a visit from Alex Zapadenko (a software designer). During his visit, he participated in our cleaning oil spills experiment by asking questions to help learners think through the different steps of the experiment. Additionally, he introduced the engineering design process to make a real-world connection to our experiment. One of our morning launches focused on determination to help encourage learners never to give up! We watched Derek Redmond’s remarkable 1992 Barcelona Olympic race to put things in perspective. As we are approaching the end of this school year, I want to encourage all learners, Guides, and parents to dig deep and finish strong! We can all do it!

Middle School Studio + HS Story Arts & Civ

Another busy week here in the Middle School Studio this week! Learners are eagerly working on their Core Skills badges, as well as turning in assignments from past Quests, Civilizations, and Story Arts sessions! For our Morning Launches this week we had Frida lead an amazing launch on morals and ethics, a launch on After Action Reviews, and a Fascinating Friday led by Riley!In Quest this week, learners dove deep into human impact on Earth by exploring conservation issues. Monday they explored topics like deforestation, overuse of natural resources, and animal endangerment; their challenge was to create a poster or infographic that relays facts and figures about the current state of their topic. Wednesday, learners turned their focus to water conservation issues like water pollution, water wastage, chemical leaching, acid rain, and diversion of natural water flow. Learners created a Public Service Advertisement (PSA) in a format of their choice to help spread awareness of water conservation problems. Friday, learners focused their research on environmental issues related to energy, like natural energy sources, renewable energy, and the effects of nuclear energy. Their final challenge of the week was to build a sustainable energy generator like a solar oven, a wind turbine, or water wheel!

Our Middle and High School learners continued their Manifest Destiny Civilization this week by discussing the continued atrocities that happened to Native Americansm even after the Trail of Tears, through boarding school “white washing”. Learners empathized with children living through the abuse that these ‘schools’ inflicted, by reading different accounts of what took place throughout America and Canada.  Learned then designed a Maker’s Challenge prototype that would allow Westward Expansion in early America, while still maintaining Native Americans’ land, culture, and dignity.The Story Arts challenge this week was centered around the idea of information consumption - how we get information and how we use it, as well as discussing the lost ability in our society to have honest dialogue and debate respectfully and constructively. Learners were then assigned debate teams that they will work with for two weeks. They were tasked with researching the Motion, taking notes that were relevant to their arguments, and writing an outline for the first two portions of the debate. The Motion learners will be arguing for or against is “The House believes that social media makes people less socially active.”

High School Studio

Monday: 4/17: What a week! We started off the week with a wonderful and informative Socratic Launch led by Taina. The presentation, titled, “Thinking with the Left and Right side of the brain” focused on what each side of the brain does, the myths surrounding these claims, and why/why not each side is helpful.For Quest, we researched local, regional, national, and global laws and initiatives that focused on sustainability. Asking ourselves, “What can we do as a society to help create a long lasting world?” These are big questions, so thinking locally is helpful. Learners researched local laws such as recycling patterns, park clean-ups, etc. Some learners took the time to research other countries and compare their laws to their own!

Wednesday: 4/19: For morning Launch, we began our prep for After Action Reviews Learners signed up for a time slot, learned what they needed to do to be ready for their presentation, and had 10 minutes to begin organizing their work. With the help of Andres and Marcos, we watched two example presentations.For Quest, we explored our own homes and made charts of what we could improve to make our environment more Energy Efficient!

Friday: 4/21
We had a well researched Socratic Launch led by Joshua on the topics of Tanks. Joshua went into the history of tanks, and described various tanks throughout the ages, noting the differences in design of different countries.For Quest, We went over the history of batteries, their usage, and alternatives. We thought about Environmental challenges of producing nickel, and questioned the humanitarian role of a developer. We researched our own DIY experiments relating to Geothermal energy, and batteries!