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Spring SAVY 2017, Day 5- Science of the Sea: Diving into Marine Biology
Feb. 28, 2017—Coming soon!
Spring SAVY 2017, Day 5- Environmental Explorations: Dig It!
Feb. 28, 2017—Dear Parents: We began our day reviewing the concept of change (change is everywhere, change relates to time, change can be natural or manmade, and change can be random or predictable), as well as recalling the concept of soil (components of soil, layers of soil, erosion), natural resources (renewable and nonrenewable), and the problem on...
Spring SAVY 2017, Day 5- Discovering the Third Dimension
Feb. 28, 2017—Each week the geometry discoveries just keep growing! Math language has become a common part of our communication throughout class. Your scholars are able to collaborate and share ideas, respectfully listen to others, and apply prior knowledge to new concepts. The connections and learning are a joy to watch! This week, we explored the sturdy...
Spring SAVY 2017, Day 4- No Quick Fix
Feb. 21, 2017—Wow, we’re already past the halfway mark and my class is making great progress towards understanding their own body systems and keeping them healthy. This past week, we focused on understanding and comparing two factors that influence disease: genetics and our environment. We started off this class with a quick exercise making my students decide...
Spring SAVY 2017, Day 4- Designing Shakespeare
Feb. 20, 2017—Team Designing Shakespeare: How wonderful to be back with you for the full class session! I missed our lively discussions, and the enthusiasm with which you encounter each new revelation in Shakespeare’s THE TEMPEST. We covered a lot today, and I continue to be impressed with your inventiveness and your discoveries. Your designs are becoming...
Spring SAVY 2017, Day 4- Chromatography 101
Feb. 20, 2017—At the conclusion of last week’s class, I had asked the students to describe some of the challenges of performing column chromatography. Answers included that it took a long time to elute the desired compounds from the column and that holding the tubes for collecting the samples was rather tiresome. The students also mentioned that...
Spring SAVY 2017, Day 4- Intro to Journalism
Feb. 20, 2017—SAVY Journalism students changed gears this week, from the objective stance of newswriting to the more subjective world of opinion writing. But, even in editorials (opinion pieces written by the newspaper editorial staff) and op-eds (opinion pieces written by outside writers), journalists need to use measured, detailed analysis and support their arguments with facts. You...
Spring SAVY 2017, Day 4- Hydrology 101: The World of Water
Feb. 20, 2017—Water management… There are no easy solutions when thinking about community, nation, and global water management. Today we learned a few tricks of the trade when thinking about managing our water here in Tennessee. Students role played as community stakeholders who were planning the city of Dragonfly Pond. Each stakeholder brought a unique perspective as...
Spring SAVY 2017, Day 4- Writing and Reflection
Feb. 20, 2017—We had a very productive fourth day of Writing and Reflection, in which we talked about ekphrastic poetry, scenery, and pathetic fallacy! We reviewed key concepts from past courses (notably “imagery,” “ekphrastic poetry,” and “synesthesia”) and kicked off a longer discussion about why a poet might choose to write an ekphrastic poem. After analyzing Pieter...
Spring SAVY 2017, Day 4- Robotic Programming
Feb. 20, 2017—Greetings! We had the best day so far! We started by talking about Pokémon Go, because the kids were excited about the updates that just went out! However, yesterday, they were having glitches and I was able to screen shot the error message and explain what that meant! They were so excited to see that...