Adapting to a Late Night of Brainstorming
The Biomimicry club held a marathon session on a recent Friday night. The club is preparing teams to work on the Biomimicry Global Design Challenge. This year’s challenge is to create solutions inspired by nature that address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Several recent alums, and challenge veterans, returned to share their knowledge and tips with our students. We can’t wait to see this year’s ideas!
Pictured: Adding ideas to general topics such as: lessening water usage, dyes in clothing manufacturing, and improving wind energy.
The Play’s the Thing
If you hear singing or footsteps “treading the boards” you aren’t imagining it, both the Middle and Upper Schools have begun rehearsals for their Spring musical productions.
Middle School will be presenting “Shrek Jr.” March 6 and 7 and Upper School will present the first student production of “Onegin” (a steampunk-ish musical based on the Pushkin poem and Tchaikovsky opera) being performed March 26-28.
Pictured: Working on character movement with PUSH Physical Theater in Middle School and rehearsing the opening number’s song in Upper School.
Cool Beans!
At the Grade 5 community morning meeting, Sisi Chen, our middle school counselor, contributed to the Middle School’s trimester-long kindness theme by reflecting with students about what they think it means to be “cool.” She read The Cool Bean to spur further discussion about what “cool” can look like; our students summarized it as being kind, lending a helping hand, and just being yourself!
Old Earth & Space: Inquiry Study by Grade 3
What does an inquiry study look like? The 3A classroom was studying maps, when one student asked, “How does water stay on the earth?” This led to a study of gravity, which led to a study of space, which led to a study of planets, which led to a study of gas giants and rings and number of rings. The following questions are some of those generated by the class: How fast does the earth spin? How did the water even get on earth? What is water made of? And what is evolution? All of these questions and more were answered through this study, proving not only how curious our children are, but how our teachers take the time to cultivate their curiosity, leading to authentic and powerful learning.
Cornell Vaping Research Happening at Harley
Cornell University has developed a new learning module that encourages students to directly test the effects of e-cigarette vapor on living cells. Using small quantities of e-cigarette vapor condensate, unsmoked vape juice, and water that has been vaporized and re-condensed in a clean e-cigarette, students apply these materials to a single-celled ciliated protozoan called Tetrahymena, comparing the effect of each additive on cell viability, motility, and overall shape.
Pictured: Our Grade 9 biology students were able to conduct the experiments and engage in media coverage at the same time!
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