Flashback! Ad project videos

You may recall our studies of the tools of persuasion earlier in the year. For a refresher, visit these two blog entries: 

Identity, advertising, branding, and marketing

Ad project, round two! 

While sifting through materials for the year, I realized that we hadn't actually posted our commercials online. Here are two for your enjoyment: 

Spring Trip 2014: Fun with static electricity!

As part of our tour of the Niagara Power Project, we had a hands-on experience with a Van de Graff generator. 

Lee and Karenna

Keira and Adi

Kaeli and Emma

Gabe and David

Marcellin and Sydney

Evan and Nik

Karen and Sydney

Jessie and Keira

Matthew and Sam 

Gabe and Mason Jason

 (Videos of each of these duos is available upon request.) 

Student Blogs: Christopher writes about our Bigfoot films

During the Mythology theme, our class made videos about Bigfoot. The videos were Bigfoot because Bigfoot is a myth. We made them to demonstrate good and bad science. Almost everyone had some bad science in their videos. A lot of us made people faking Bigfoot. 

In the video by Eleanor, Emma, and Margaret, Bigfoot specialist Pearl Green is hunting for Bigfoot. In Christopher, Gabe, and David’s, two normal people trying to fake Bigfoot. In Adi, KK, and Keira’s video, Adi is a reporter and Keira keeps faking Bigfoot. In Matthew, Lee, and Evan’s, Matthew was a stupid scientist who was trying to find Bigfoot. Lee is a faker and Evan is a hunter. 

Quotes about Bigfoot: 

Lee “I had an awesome costume.” 

Matthew “It was fun demonstrating bad science” 

Marcel “My costume was kind of embarrassing.”

During math, Sam had us dip our feet in paint to measure foot length and gait. Using that data, we made scatter plots and histograms.

The last (full) day!!

Eighth grade graduation is at 2:00 this afternoon. Until then, we are playing board games as an important end-of-the-year team building exercise.

Spring Trip 2014: Matthew recounts the Hornblower boat tour

Note the rainbow on the left! 

Of the many spectacular things we did on our class trip to Niagara falls and back, the boat trip directly up to the falls might have been the most amazing.

After quite a while of walking, we had finally gotten from the horseshoe falls to the boat launch. We walked down the ramp to where we got our red ponchos.

We got on the boat, and it started off toward the American falls. It was massive.  “I’ve been there before, so it wasn’t as impressive” said Marcellin when I asked him about the falls.

After a short pause at the falls, we went on. There was still some ice leftover from the winter! 

That cell phone is in tremendous danger. 

View of the American Falls as we headed toward the Horseshoe Falls

Then, we went into the horseshoe falls. Almost immediately, we were blasted by the wind and water of Niagara. After that, it got calmer, but there was mist everywhere. We didn’t see anything quite like it the rest of the trip. It was all amazing, but this was the most inspiring. 

“It was wet” is  the best Lee could come up with when I asked him later. After that, the boat turned around and headed back. When we were back at the dock, I saw both Nik and Evan in shredded ponchos. They both repeatedly yelled “These are cheap!”.

The boat was called the Hornblower.

Written by Matthew Osterholzer, 6th grade, Summers-Knoll

Student blogs: Lee tells us about the Humanities projects

Immigrants to Detroit

Hi!  I’m Lee, and I’m writing the blog today!  Today’s blog entry is about our humanities projects.  Here it goes!

We did projects in humanities, for the Cities theme.  Our theme was Detroit.  We were split into groups of six.  The group working on performing a Michael Jackson song was Luke, Kaeli, KK, Keira, Eleanor, and Adi.  They performed the song ABC.  

(Click here to see a video of the group performing at lunch.)

The group working on making a conveyor belt was Matthew, David, Evan, Grayson, Marcellin, and Gabe.  They attempted to make binders.  Our group was me, Nik, Sydney, Margaret, Emma, and Chris.  We had to make a map of Detroit, with flags from several different cultures.

We have to include comments from our classmates, so I will include a comment from each group.  According to Matthew, in the assembly line group, the binder-making went ,“really good.”  According to Adi, in the Michael Jackson group, “It was a very interesting and fun experience.”  According to Nik, the map went, ”great, it’s awesome.”

We also had to record us talking about Henry Ford’s Americanization program, where, after 72 classes, it ended in a commencement ceremony involving a giant model of an immigrant ship and a melting pot.

Spring Trip 2014: Karenna writes about Old Fort Niagara

Our first stop on Jason and Sam’s ⅚ class Spring trip was Old Fort Niagara, in the state of New York. On the outside you couldn’t tell how many traps were lying in wait for the British, there were deep ditches, stake walls, and cannons hiding behind the small round hills. At first glance, it looks like some kind of moat, but if you take a closer look, steep ditches create numerous hills, high walls, and the tight fences prevent people who don’t know where the entrance, is from coming in.

After we walked around to the side of the fort, a bridge stood there, leading to the entrance. The tour guide asked us to find ways the French could have prevented the British from entering, and after a bit, he told us. There were small hills on the side near the entrance, and behind them were cannons loaded with grapeshot (bullets that were shot out of cannons). There was also a drawbridge, but no one knew why the half of the bridge closest to the fort was wooden. According to the tour guide, it was so the French could burn it down if the British were attacking. To us, it didn’t make much sense, but to the French, keeping their fort was much more important that keeping a bridge.

After we entered, we toured the building where the resources were kept, and the building where the gun powder was kept, before our tour guide handed us over to some French military, so we could learn how to be a soldier. One of the soldiers (his name was Lee) demonstrated shooting his gun, before handing us our own muskets to practice firing. (Ours were wooden, don’t worry) we learned how to hold them, load them and fire them, with specific steps that were very terrifying. SPRINKLE SPRINKLE SPRINKLE!!! See how intimidating I am?

Next came my favorite part. I have just one sentence to describe it. Are you ready? La Bayonet! La Bayonet! La Bayonet!! Thats right folks, we used the famous invisible bayonets to storm an American soldier and a British musician! After we won our battle, and completed our training, we were left to explore the fort as we liked. So I went and spent my time looking inside the buildings, and enjoying the scenic hills. Overall, I think Old Fort Niagara was one of my favorite sites that we visited! You should definitely try out the soldier thing. La Bayonet! La Bayonet! La Bayonet!!

In one of the supply buildings, we experimented with different pulley systems to see how simple machines can make moving heavy items much, much easier. 

We also learned a lot about barrels, which amused Lee for some reason. 

Spring Trip: Gabe writes about the Journey Behind the Falls

Gabe points out the viewing platforms.

Behind the Falls is where people go get a yellow poncho, and then go down an elevator. When they get out of the elevator, they walk by the tunnel that goes right under the falls. So you could: A) go right under the falls in a tunnel or B) go on the observation deck. First we went on the observation deck, with rushing water all around us! “The falls are so much bigger than they look,” said Marcel. After that we went into the tunnel, and saw the falls from a new perspective.  “When you throw a rock into the falls from the tunnel they just, disappear,” I said. “Selfie,” said Jason.

Quotes:

“It was awesome,” said Adi.

“I got wet, but it was fun” said Lee.

Guess the silhouette! 

Guess the silhouette! 

Spring Trip: Adi on the butterfly conservatory

When the 5th and 6th graders went on their Spring Trip, their first stop in Canada was a very magical place, the Butterfly Conservatory. The Conservatory was an awesome sight. We saw many different species of butterfly everywhere. There were blue butterflies, orange butterflies, tiger striped butterflies, red butterflies, purple butterflies, black butterflies, yellow, black, and red butterflies, and many, many more butterflies.

“There was, like, a million butterflies everywhere!” says Karenna Collins-Thompson, a present 6th grader, who really enjoyed the Butterfly Conservatory. My favorite thing about the Butterfly Conservatory is that the butterflies can actually land on you! And, we had a very special pair of butterflies reminding us of the importance of OWL.

“We saw two butterflies mating,” says Lee, also a present 6th grader, “and then one of them died.” I was very excited when a butterfly landed on ME!  

Although my butterfly flew away in a minute or two, others were more lucky. Keira’s butterfly REALLY liked her leg, and stayed on it for almost 10 minutes,while Marcellin had a beautiful butterfly hairclip.

“It was awesome,” said Marcellin, a 5th grader. I’m sure EVERYONE had a great time! I sure did, and I can’t wait to go there again!

-Adi

Special Thanks to Jason, Sam, and Karen for organizing such a GREAT Spring Trip! =)

Spring Trip: Kaeli on "Niagara's Fury"

Kaeli and Nik on a Ferris wheel in Niagara Falls

Hey people! As you know, we went to Niagara falls. Or did you? Anyways, We went to a 4-D movie called “Niagara’s Fury” It’s about the history of Niagara’s history. It was about half an hour. It really fun. Sydney and I were freaking out half the time. “I got wet.” Said Sydney. That’s what she liked about it. I liked that half the time you were screaming and the other half you are in awe. Marcellin said “I liked the 4-d part.” As you can see it was really fun. “It was AWESOME!” Said Karenna. And it was. We got soaked, and had a ton of fun. We also did a lot of other stuff, but you’ll hear about them in other blogs.

Peace! 
Kaeli

The end is near...

As we near the end of the year, a (partial) group portrait. (Blog posts about the Spring trip coming soon!)

3/4 dress rehearsal

Joanna's class has been working on staging two short plays. This afternoon, we took a break from writing reflections on the year to provide an audience for one of the dress rehearsals.

2014 Spring Trip: The Niagara Power Project

NOTE: Whoops! Here's a brief blog post from our 2014 Spring Trip that apparently never got posted. I'm publishing it one year late partially so that there's a more complete record of that amazing trip, and partially because it's a cool photo of Sydney that might otherwise go to waste.

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You may remember that we spent some time learning about dams earlier in the year. Our studies then included students role playing a character with a specific vested interest in building or opposing a dam near the town. Each student wrote a persuasive essay articulating their position.

Our simulation was about a small, rural town that was about sixty miles from the next nearest city. While touring the massive Niagara Power Project, we found that though the scales were radically different, the issues were very similar, including the controversial acquisition of tribal lands to make way for construction.

You can read a little more about the history of the site here.