SAVY Category
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 4, “Space Academy: Exploring the Work of Astronauts” (3rd-4th)
Jul. 17, 2025—We launched into Day 4 by applying the scientific method to observe the water cycle in action. Students measured water temperature, poured equal amounts into two sealed bags, and placed one in a sunny window and the other in a shaded area. They developed hypotheses about what would happen and began recording their observations in...
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 4, “The Making of America: Rebellion, Revolt, and Resolution” (3rd-4th)
Jul. 17, 2025—Hello! Whenever I teach intensive courses, I need to remind myself that I’m teaching a massive amount of content that would ordinarily take a month or more, in 5 days! We’ve made it from Colonial history to the Battle of Yorktown and the Bill of Rights in 4 days AND completed huge group research projects and...
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 4, “Exploring Epidemiology One Microorganism at a Time” (3rd-4th)
Jul. 17, 2025—Dear parents, Today in Exploring Epidemiology One Microorganism at a Time, we finalized our towns’ emergency plan and supplies. In groups, the students brainstormed about emergency safety measures for our towns, chose quantities of supplies (meals, water, masks, etc.) to “order”, and thought about what town officials like the mayor, sheriff, public health officer,...
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 4, “Water and Weather” (1st-2nd)
Jul. 17, 2025—Exploring Weather Through Observation and Experimentation Today in our Water and Weather course, students stepped into the shoes of young meteorologists as they explored the dynamic systems that shape the atmosphere around us. Our morning began with students learning which instruments meteorologists use to measure the key elements of weather, such as temperature, precipitation, air pressure,...
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 4, “Intro to Coding” (1st-2nd)
Jul. 17, 2025—We started our day by visiting another PTY program! We visited high school students in the VSA (Vanderbilt Summer Academy) program. Their professor explained that they have been working on building and programming autonomous driving machines. Our class observed how high school students used the engineering design process to improve code and robots during trials....
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 4, “Encounters with Measurement” (1st-2nd)
Jul. 17, 2025—Hello SAVY Families, Thursday brought new learning, discovery, and creativity to our SAVY Session Five: Encounters with Measurement. I could not be prouder of the mathematicians’ hard work today! To start our day, we continued working with liquid volume and capacity. Then, a scenario was proposed where students had to plan how to...
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 3, “Writing History: Truth and Lessons in the Past” (7th-8th)
Jul. 16, 2025—Today, we recapped Frederick Douglass’s July 4th speech by making a poster of the points of the argument against slavery in the speech. We generated questions about context, such as who invited Frederick Douglass, why he was selected to speak, what the response was, and brainstormed the format the response could take (newspapers, letters, diaries,...
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 3, “Utopia or Dystopia: The Nature of Power” (7th-8th)
Jul. 16, 2025—Hello Families and Students! Well, everyone, it is the middle of the week, and things in the Utopian universe are devolving fast! Today, we began thinking through different scenarios that we as country leaders might face and have to make difficult decisions about. We questioned why utopian ideals devolve into dystopian realities and what things...
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 3, “Hidden Chemistry: Everyday Chemical Reactions” (7th-8th)
Jul. 16, 2025—SAVY Families, Today in Hidden Chemistry: Everyday Chemical Reactions, we dove into the fascinating chemistry of water and space! Students explored how water’s unique properties shape life on Earth and how chemistry plays a crucial role in space exploration. We started the day by discussing why water is often called the “universal solvent”. Students...
Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 3, “The Origins of Math: Discovery or Invention?” (5th-6th)
Jul. 16, 2025—We started the day with cognitive puzzles, which have been slowly increasing in difficulty, going from a mix of hard to challenging. Our students have been rising to the occasion using collaborative work, well-formulated questions to the teacher, and simple perseverance. For every solved puzzle, a paper construction was taking flight across the room. We...