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. 

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.

Home stretch!

As the end of the year fast approaches, projects are culminating! Here we see the 5/6s working on assembling their city in the atrium, as the 3/4s rehearse their play outside.

Meanwhile, Kaeli and Sydney are wiring their building up for light:

Field trip to the DIA!

Art class was particularly spectacular today. Monica arranged a visit to the Detroit Institute of Arts, where we were taken on a marvelous tour that included many pieces of art that tied into the things we've been studying this year. 

One highlight was a close examination of the famous murals by Diego Rivera. We also took a closer look at some landscape work, which the kids will be working on next week in art. 

Today was apparently quite a big day for field trips to the DIA, as the place was virtually overrun with excited kids from many different schools. It was great to see so many kids so enthusiastically enjoying this remarkable local resource, but I have to say that I was especially proud of and impressed with how the Summers-Knoll kids conducted themselves. They made astute observations, asked insightful questions, and did a great job of taking advantage of the experience. 

Ford River Rouge Plant tour

We visited the Henry Ford River Rouge Plant last Friday, the highlight of which was touring the factory where the Ford F-150 is assembled. 

Photography was strictly forbidden, which is a shame. I would have loved to have taken a few pictures of the awestruck faces watching as partially-assembled trucks sailed above, below, and around us in a carefully choreographed ballet. It was hypnotic.  

Someone else in the world broke the no-photography rule, so here's a glimpse of what we saw:

We also visited the observation deck, where you can see the rest of the plant sprawling out before you, crowned with one of the world's largest living roofs.

(We weren't quite this high up.) 

Back at school, we showed a couple of classic clips that were relevant to what we had seen:

I Love Lucy: 

Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times:

You may or may not be surprised to hear that the comedy holds up!

Hints of Spring

At long last, we had something approaching decent weather today! We got outside this afternoon for some hard-earned recess, and many kids immediately set to constructing dams like the kinds we've been studying this week. 

While some kids were digging down into the dirt and snow, others were climbing up... 

Guest Speaker Perry Kulper

On Tuesday, we were fortunate to have architect and University of Michigan professor Perry Kulper in to visit with our class. 

Perry showed us an assortment of his fascinating work, and talked about his life as an architect and an artist. He even took some time to offer critiques of some of the collages that our kids are making in Art.

Take a closer look at some of Perry's work here. It's very interesting, and the kids were quite taken with it. 

We were all grateful for Perry's time and the thoughtful discussion that he generated. 

To dam or not to dam?

We've spent the week discussing dams, which, as it turns out, are pretty controversial structures. 

We began with the reading of a hypothetical scenario in a hypothetical town: The tiny town of Rocksburg (population: 900) sits on the (also fictional) Jones River. The citizens are considering approving the construction of a dam on the river two miles upstream from the town. We spent a lot of time mulling over the ramifications of such a structure. 

There are many pros to this idea. For example, it would provide the area with a clean power supply. It would generate a number of jobs in the area, while stimulating the local economy by increasing tax revenues and increasing tourism. The lake created by the dam would help control flooding, provide inexpensive irrigation for farmers, and it would provide needed nesting areas for Bald Eagle populations. 

On the other hand, the local infrastructure would be stressed: Where will the construction crew live? What about their families? How would the roads handle 2000 workers in a town currently populated by 900 people? What about the sewage system? The school system? Looking at the longer term, the dam would create a large lake, where once there was a river. Land that supports a wide variety of species would be lost beneath the newly-formed lake, and the transition from the cool, fast-flowing water of the river to the slower, warmer water of the lake would have a profound effect on the species of fish living there. 

Those are only a few of the pros and cons. There are many others. Read the full scenario here for more details. 

After a group discussion, each student was assigned a role to play. For example, one student might be portraying a land developer who is interested in the building and selling lakeside homes, while another might be acting as a Native American concerned about heritage sites being submerged beneath the new lake. Each student is using the situation to write a short persuasive essay about why the town should or should not vote to construct the dam, based on their character's interests. 

These issues aren't black and white, and today, we ventured out to see how they've played out in our own community. There are a number of dams along the Huron River, and we visited one of them today: 

Barton Dam, frozen solid

Some brave souls ventured the cold and the wind to take a look from the walkway above the floodgates. 

The view from the walkway on the floodgates. Sam and some of our class are visible waving to us on the right. 

Looking straight down from the walkway. There were some amazing ice structures to check out. 

 

Not everyone was complaining about the cold. 

Heading back to the warmth of the buses. 

STEM: Flow in cities and our bodies

As part of our Cities theme, we've talked a lot about the concept of flow. Electricity, water, traffic, people, resources, internet bandwidth, and phone lines are just a few of the many types of flow that are vital to a city's operation. One gauge of a city's health is how efficiently these systems operate. 

In Math today, the blue group (and our visiting fourth grade guests) took this concept and applied it to our bodies, measuring our pulse rate after sitting at rest, then again after doing twenty jumping jacks, and then a third time after quietly stretching out on the floor with our eyes closed for a few minutes. When we saw the changes in the rates after each activity, we talked about the reasons behind them: Why does your heart rate go up during physical exertion? What's happening in your body, and why? 

Wiring up Ant Arbor with Joanna's class

We had a lovely afternoon with Joanna's class today, working to install lighting circuits in the model homes built by the younger students. 

We've spent a lot of time in class (read more here, here, and here) on the topic, and today we got to apply our knowledge by showing the younger kids how to wire two LEDs using parallel circuits. 

It was a lovely opportunity for cross-classroom collaboration, and every single one of our kids did a wonderful job with their younger partners, carefully explaining the set up and teaching them how to replicate it themselves. 

Our group outnumbers Joanna's, so we also had a tiger team of specialists available to help strip wire, divvy out supplies, and help troubleshoot problems around the room. 

It was really an impressive showing by all of our kids, striking an excellent balance between demonstration and teaching as opposed to just doing it for the younger kids. They did a great job today!

STEM: Learning about circuitry and wiring

We've been learning a lot about electricity as part of our STEM work with our Cities theme. We'll be putting this new knowledge to use later this week when we visit Joanna's 3/4 class to help them install lighting in the tiny city that they're building in their classroom ("Ant Arbor"). 

Before we can teach the younger kids, we needed to get some experience ourselves: 

We disassembled switches, outlets, and power cords, examining the inner workings. 

Most kids didn't know how to strip a wire, so Marcellin shared his expertise by teaching a mini-workshop about how to use the tools to prepare wires to be connected. 

We'll be visiting the 3/4s on Wednesday afternoon to begin helping them illuminate their cities.