Students have engaged their robots in a fierce tournament for the past few weeks. Working in pairs, they programmed and coded their robots, while the students in the MakerSpace elective kindly built and paint round areas for robots to compete. On February 14, the challenge culminated with the championship finals.
The Student Party Planning Committee (PPC) was in charge of the event in middle school this year. Thank you, PPC, for a fun celebration based on inclusiveness and kindness toward others!
Black History Month Celebration: reflecting on bias, stereotypes and preconceived ideas
Ms. Aseltine and Ms. Addo organized a whole middle school forum on February 14, 2019 on the theme of stereotypes, bias, and preconceived ideas. Students were invited to work in groups of 5 or 6, and tasked with the objective of producing a collective drawing of what a “social loser” and a “social winner” are. After 20 minutes of teamwork, all students gathered in a full assembly, and discussed two drawings. The drawings were an opportunity to reflect on bias of judging people upon their appearance, and how we assess others through the filters of assumptions based on preconceived representations.
On February 7, the 8th grade ESL students went on a field trip to UCSD with their ESL teachers, Amelia McCurdy and Erika Geary Fowler. The students were responsible for planning and implementing a tour of the Stuart Collection at UCSD. Students researched various art installations and guided them around the campus, providing detailed descriptions of each piece in English. The two teachers were lucky to have such motivated English learners as tour guides, as they both forgot their glasses and their French for the day!
During the time on campus, the students successfully found all art installations, asked detailed questions regarding the projects and directions from campus staff, and were able to contribute to a collaborative chalk installation. Be sure to ask them about their adventure (in English)!
Thank you to Amelia and Erika for such an impeccable project based unit, since the field trip was only a piece of it. It is now time for the students’ feedback papers!
In Middle School, formalized Teacher Office Hours have been implemented in an effort to continue to providing an ongoing availability of teachers to students’ questions. See a striking example of teacher/student teamwork, with Ms. Jacoway in action with two smiling 6th grade students eager to learn outside of their classroom time!
The middle school student L.I.V.E. club spearheaded and organized the first sustainability event of the kind at SDFAS, which took place on February 7 with all students from 5th to 8th grades. Alternating between thorough and insightful presentations from the two keynote speakers, Emi Koch, and Malte Niebelschuetz, and conversation times, the event was impeccably delivered. The goal was to raise awareness about plastic consumption and the impact on the planet, and to understand what we can do in our everyday lives to reduce the amount of waste we produce.
The student audience came up with suggestions, which they will now need to direct to the LIVE club for concrete action. Our campus and our community are where we can take action now. To further raise awareness, Ms. Aseltine called on students to take pictures around them, and all pictures will be collated into an art installation to be exhibited in the weeks to come.
Thank you to all for their participation and engagement, and a big round of applause for the LIVE club, Ms. Aseltine, Mr. Niebelschuetz and Ms. Koch!
For further information about our speakers, please visit:
Emi Koch: https://www.beyondthesurfaceinternational.org
And Coast 2 Coast’s website: Festival Somos Mar
Malte Niebelschuetz: www.shore-buddies.com
Awesome Lion Dance with an thorough instructional tutorial about how Lions are built, and what they are made of, and how they put emotions in visible motion! Thank you, it was a wonderful event!
