Grade 5 Category
Summer SAVY 2019: Session 1, Day 2 – Nuclear Science and Energy (Rising 5th/6th)
Jun. 11, 2019—What a great day! With nuclear power, we’re still building on the knowledge from yesterday – we’re working on the foundation of the tiny particles that are studied, analyzed, and utilized to help make nuclear power possible! The concepts of radioisotopes and nuclear decay was introduced, to see how radiation fits into this topic! This...
Summer SAVY 2019: Session 1, Day 2 – Theory, Criticism, and The Force (Rising 5th/6th)
Jun. 11, 2019—Rising Moons, my young Padawans! Thanks for another fun and invested day of Theory, Criticism, and The Force! I’m so impressed with how you’ve grappled with our course content. We are covering a not-insignificant amount of material every day, and many of these concepts would be explored in graduate studies. You’re proving your rigor and...
Summer SAVY 2019: Session 1, Day 1 – Puzzles and Problem Solving (Rising 5th/6th)
Jun. 10, 2019—The Puzzles and Problem Solving class first investigated the Ultimatum Game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game) and the Prisoner’s Dilemma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner’s_dilemma). After this introduction to game theory, the students then played a 2-player card game, attempting to determine the winning strategy. The problem goes like this: “Given a deck of 21 cards, players alternate turns by taking one, two,...
Summer SAVY 2019: Session 1, Day 1 – Nuclear Science and Energy (Rising 5th/6th)
Jun. 10, 2019—What a great day getting to know everyone! Nuclear Power has started off with quite the… bang! After an icebreaker, we had some really meaningful discussions about how to be a scientist. We also introduced the question: Does Nuclear Power help or harm our efforts to combat climate change? It’s a difficult question to answer,...
Summer SAVY 2019: Session 1, Day 1 – Theory, Criticism, and The Force (Rising 5th/6th)
Jun. 10, 2019—Dear Students of Theory, Criticism, and The Force: Thank you for an exciting, intellectually rigorous first day! I’ll be honest; you’ve set the bar for the week, and you’ve set it high. I’ve had the pleasure of teaching this class for several years, at SAVY and at the collegiate level. I’m thrilled when a first...
Spring SAVY 2019, Day 6 – The Water-Energy Nexus (5th/6th)
Mar. 7, 2019—This was the final session for the Water-Energy Nexus course. What a great 6 weeks it has been! I was very impressed with the students. They found creative ways to overcome limitations in some of our experimental activities and engaged the lessons in a way that made me more curious about some of the topics...
Spring SAVY 2019, Day 6 – Mystery and History (5th/6th)
Mar. 7, 2019—What a great final meeting for our detective historians! What a fun, detecting-filled, and learning-filled six weeks we’ve had. It is so hard to believe that it is already over. Our detectives historians did so much hard work and grew so much in their sleuthing skills. They also learned to work together as a class...
Spring SAVY 2019, Day 5 – The Water-Energy Nexus (5th/6th)
Feb. 25, 2019—Water-Energy Nexus, Lesson 4: Biofuels and Transportation The class this Saturday was a bit on the lighter side (8 or 9 students), but the tighter atmosphere allowed for deeper and more lengthy conversation. · We began by going over the class expectations (respect, raise your hand, don’t touch the experimental materials until instructed) and the...
Spring SAVY 2019, Day 5 – Mystery and History (5th/6th)
Feb. 25, 2019—Our sleuths put in such great work today after they disembarked their canoes! Their attentiveness made today’s adventure so much fun! We picked up with Nov. 25, 1783, Evacuation Day in New York City, to consider a new perspective on the revolution: the Loyalist perspective. We discussed how as Americans our natural perspective is a...
Spring SAVY 2019, Day 4 – The Water-Energy Nexus (5th/6th)
Feb. 18, 2019—February 18, 2019 Water-Energy Nexus Saturday’s class was great! We began by completing the analysis and discussion of our water filtration experiments from last week. In that experiment, we designed and tested the water treatment capacity of five different filtration media (activated carbon, cotton balls, coffee filters, macaroni, and aquarium gravel. Then, we reviewed that...