Summer SAVY 2022/Session 1 – Matter Mysteries for Rising 1st/2nd Grade
Coming Soon!
Summer SAVY, Session 3 Day 3, “Introduction to Python for Beginners” (7th-8th)
Jun. 25, 2025—Hello Parents and Students! We’ve wrapped up Day 3 of our Intro to Python for Beginners course, and today we took a major step forward: learning how to organize and reuse code like real programmers! What We Learned Students were introduced to functions, which allow them to group commands into reusable pieces. We also explored modules, which help store...
Summer SAVY, Session 3 Day 3, “Finding “Faults” in Media: The Geology of Disaster Movies” (7th-8th)
Jun. 25, 2025—Good afternoon, SAVY Parents! We are more than halfway through our session! Today was focused on Earth’s history and the evolution of life. We went through all 4.5 billion years of Earth’s history together and then played a game using the names of the geologic time periods. We watched clips from two Ice Age movies...
Summer SAVY, Session 3 Day 3, “Space and Story: Structure of the Universe” (5th-6th)
Jun. 25, 2025—We started the day by going over students’ analysis of short stories by Asimov and Bradbury, focusing on how literary elements interact to promote meaning within the text and evaluating how each author used theme, symbols, and mood to provide insight into the nature of humanity. From lively, deep, and insightful discussions on science fiction,...
Summer SAVY, Session 3 Day 3, “Math & Music” (5th-6th)
Jun. 25, 2025—The third day of Math & Music was focused on the exploration of shapes and their unique role in music. We kicked off the day by discussing where shapes appear in musical experiences. The students eagerly shared their observations, especially focusing on dance. They recognized that dancers create various shapes and lines with their bodies,...
Summer SAVY, Session 3 Day 3, “Biology of the Body: Exploring Human Body Systems” (5th-6th)
Jun. 25, 2025—Happy Wednesday! The students dove deep into the fascinating world of the skeletal system through a variety of hands-on activities and exciting learning experiences! To start, students created a colorful booklet all about joints. They identified different types of joints – like hinge, ball-and-socket, and pivot – and learned where these joints are found in the body. This...
Summer SAVY, Session 3 Day 3, “Percy Jackson & Greek Mythology” (3rd-4th)
Jun. 25, 2025—What a busy day we had today! We started our day with some more Greek Mythology trivia questions to refresh our memory of what we learned over the last few days. After trivia, we applied that knowledge in one of my favorite activities we do the entire week! The students had to pick a God...
Summer SAVY, Session 3 Day 3, “Mathematicians in History: Patterns, Order, and Relationships” (3rd-4th)
Jun. 25, 2025—Hello SAVY Families, Wednesday brought more deep mathematical thinking, connections, and perseverance to the SAVY mathematician in your family. Each day, the mathematicians continue to raise the standard, and I could not be more proud of their hard work today. We started the day by reviewing the concepts we have learned this week...
Summer SAVY, Session 3 Day 3, “Circuitry, Systems, and Design: Electrical Engineering” (3rd-4th)
Jun. 25, 2025—Dear Students and Parents, Today in Circuitry Systems & Design, our young engineers made an exciting leap from learning about electricity to applying their knowledge in real-world design challenges. With a strong foundation in how electricity flows and which materials conduct or insulate, students were ready to begin designing and building their own electrical systems. We...
Summer SAVY, Session 3 Day 3, “Plants & Pollen: Exploring Agricultural Engineering” (1st-2nd)
Jun. 25, 2025—We started our morning together by reviewing what we have learned so far this week to include the topic of butterflies. We watched a video of a Monarch Butterfly going through metamorphosis. The next pollinator we learned about was bats. Students were amazed to learn about how many bats exist and were fascinated by what...
Summer SAVY, Session 3 Day 3, “Archeology 101: Unearthing Secrets of the Past” (1st-2nd)
Jun. 25, 2025—Today was a big day for our young archaeologists. This morning, we had a visit from Ms. Lily. She’s a Bioarcheologist and research assistant in the Bioarcheology and Stable Isotope Research Lab at Vanderbilt. We explored how you can determine a person’s age by analyzing their teeth. You can analyze a pelvis to determine if...
Summer SAVY, Session 3 Day 2, “Neurobiology of Learning and Memory” (7th-8th)
Jun. 24, 2025—Today began with our student presentations on multiple sclerosis (or “MS”, a condition resulting from neurons losing their protective coating)! The four student groups lead a review of action potential (neuronal communication) and presented very useful information on the definition, causes, treatment, and future research directions of MS. Specifically, we improved our understanding of how...
Summer SAVY, Session 3 Day 2, “Introduction to Python for Beginners” (7th-8th)
Jun. 24, 2025—Hello Parents and Students! We wrapped up Day 2 of the Intro to Python for Beginners course, and today was all about thinking like a programmer. Students took a big step forward by learning how to make decisions in code and automate repetitive tasks. These are powerful tools in any programmer’s toolbox! Today’s focus was on two big ideas:...
Summer SAVY, Session 3 Day 2, “Finding “Faults” in Media: The Geology of Disaster Movies” (7th-8th)
Jun. 24, 2025—Hello SAVY Parents! Today’s theme was natural disasters, and we covered a lot of aspects of them! We started out with the students learning about earthquake magnitude and intensity, hazard (likelihood of an event occurring) vs risk (likelihood of that event impacting a particular location), and recurrence intervals of different natural disasters. After that, we...
Summer SAVY, Session 3 Day 2, “Space and Story: Structure of the Universe” (5th-6th)
Jun. 24, 2025—It was an exciting day in Space and Story: Structure of the Universe! We started the day learning about the major change Einstein made to Newton’s ideas about gravity. To see for ourselves how massive objects distort spacetime, we used spandex tape wrapped hula hoops to model spacetime in our universe. We used pucks as...
Summer SAVY, Session 3 Day 2, “Math & Music” (5th-6th)
Jun. 24, 2025—Today’s math and music class dove deep into the world of copyright. We began by discussing what makes a work qualify as copyright infringement versus simply drawing inspiration from another artist’s creation. The conversation sparked some lively debate as students explored how originality and influence intersect in music. To make it interactive, we played a...