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Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 5, The Power of Persuasion (7th-8th)
Jul. 19, 2024—Hello, all you persuasive people! I am feeling such a mix of emotions today as we wrap up our Power of Persuasion course. I am sad to see everyone go, but I am so incredibly proud of each and every one of our students. Persuasion classes can be challenging, especially for a large group,...
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 5, Invasive Species (7th-8th)
Jul. 19, 2024—Dear parents of invasive species experts, Today was all about “unintended consequences”. To round out the week, we had the most important lesson and discussion of all… are HUMANS invasive species? Possibly the MOST invasive species? What do we as a population do to unintentionally harm the world around us? We started with a...
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 5, Exploring the Human Mind (7th-8th)
Jul. 19, 2024—Dear Exploring the Human Mind parents, It’s hard to believe that today was our last day! But what a great day we had! We spent the morning putting together our final poster presentations. This activity allowed students to combine their research findings with their art skills, and it seemed like everyone had a blast designing...
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 5, Wildlife Ecology (5th-6th)
Jul. 19, 2024—On our final day of class, we started by going around the room sharing our favorite part of the week. Several of them said their favorite thing this week was making new friends. We then got to work, and I shared the results of the community survey. You’ll recall that yesterday we talked about surveys...
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 5, Intro to Neurobiology (5th-6th)
Jul. 19, 2024—Dear SAVY families, Today we learned about two new topics in the morning. The first is metacognition. Our students came to know that memorizing facts or learning a simple skill is a more primitive (and yet still crucial) type of learning. Such learning can be achieved via conditioning. This ability is shared by humans and...
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 5, Transformations in Writing (3rd-4th)
Jul. 19, 2024—Greetings! I am very happy to report that at the beginning of our session, about 1/3 said they didn’t particularly like writing. Today, we had 100% report they like it with a lot of ‘love it!” comments! I love that! The whole point of this week was not only to help them find their...
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 5, Programming and Robotics (3rd-4th)
Jul. 19, 2024—Today was our “Invention Convention!” Each team was invited to revisit a previous project or create a new project from scratch. They were challenged to use their teamwork strategies to plan, build, program, test, and iterate a project of their choice using the engineering design process. Then, they were asked to create a compelling sales...
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 5, Chemical Spill (Pilote) (3rd-4th)
Jul. 19, 2024—Hey Savy Families, Students walked to the Stevenson Science Center and met with Dr. Daniel to take a tour of the chemistry lab. They were excited and had many questions. I showed them a magic trick that required knowledge of acids and bases. Next, we started our research about an animal of their choice....
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 5, Chemical Spill (Lowe) (3rd-4th)
Jul. 19, 2024—We were sorry to see Chemical Spill come to an end today. We thoroughly enjoyed your children this week! The students started the day researching animals of the Cumberland Water Basin and thought about how our chemical spill would affect them. And we revealed our chemical…..hydrochloric acid! (But explained we had used apple cider vinegar...
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 5, Engineering Design (Lewis) (1st-2nd)
Jul. 19, 2024—Engineering Design started our final day with a guest speaker, Craig Shuman, a mechanical engineer. The students had amazing questions for him. They found out that he uses math and science in his job, works with forces and Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion, and even makes mistakes. He explained how he uses the Engineering Design...