Seed Bombing

Hi, I’m Noah. I’m in Jason’s 5th grade class, and I have a blog post just for YOU! Yes, you. It’s just for you! On Wednesday, May 1, we went down to the Water Street Redevelopment Project, and we seed bombed it!

If you don’t know what seed bombing is, I’ll tell you. Seed bombing is when you make these little balls made of clay, compost, and whatever seeds you want, and throw them into a field. Mark Maynard, (Clementine's dad) wanted to seed bomb the field because he thought it would

show that the people of Ypsilanti care about their community. 

Making the seed bombs

At first, he decided to just do it with adults and their children, but after some thought, he thought that it would be a good educational experience, so he decided to include schools. His original idea was to seed bomb with sunflowers, but after talking to other people about it, he decided not to, mainly because if the sunflowers roots pick up pollutants, they would have to be treated like hazardous waste. Plus, it’s better to use native plants because they are stronger when in their own environment.

Noah with a slingshot

The tools we used to shoot the seed balls out were our hands, tiny trebuchets, a colossal trebuchet, slingshots, and a snowball thrower.

Some people were kind of violent, throwing them like there are aiming at birds, and others were more subtle. But all in all, everyone loved it! It turns out that your hands are the best for aiming, the snowball throwers sort of worked, the tiny trebuchets failed almost always, and when they did work, that launched it 3 feet away from the curb, and the most efficient was the slingshot, that shot it extremely far, and had amazing aim and precision! The seeds we used (for you horticulturalists out there) are in this link right HERE.The people who made the trebuchets were all in Science Club, and you can check out Dr. G.’s Blog for a little bit about the construction, which is right HERE. The main event took place at 5:00 PM, but I couldn’t show up, but I do have a few pictures from Mark Maynard’s Blog, which is HERE.

Anyway, that’s my blog post. Thank you all for reading! This has been Noah, a new reporter, signing off!

Lee on Computer Games

This is Lee.  I am posting on this blog for the first time, and I am super excited!  I am going to tell you about video games we have been using in our class.  One online game I would suggest is Gamestar Mechanic!  It is all about learning to build computer games, and you can play games that others have built. You can build educational games, skill games, or even games with riddles!  You can edit your avatar’s speed and health, and an enemy’s speed, damage, health, movements, and possibly rate of fire and jumping!  It has been useful in our class because we could make projects with it.  You can build games with text and a story, or just to be a challenge!  

Here are some of my sample games:

The first game is just for a short challenge:

Cavern of Stars

These two games show people the basics of gamestar mechanic controls:

Game for New Players 1

Game for New Players 2

This game is to show that backgrounds are important in games.  For example, if you play without a background, this game looks simple.  But with a background, there is an illusion.  (Press z or m to go into a portal (yellow side) and come out the other end (gray side).)

Light and Shadow

Here are some Farm to Table games from the start of the year: 

Laurea's Farm to Table game

Lee's Farm to Table game

Next is a game that I made in math class, about a game we were studying called Nim.  We were studying it because it shows how binary works, in a simple way.  Each player can take 1, 2, or 3 sticks at a time and whoever takes the last stick wins or loses. (Predetermined at the start)  

You play with 20 sticks and take turns.  If you go first and pick the right number of sticks sticks you always win.  
First turn: pick 3.  
All other turns: If your opponent chose 2, take 2, chose 1, take 3, chose 3, take 1.  

If you do this, you will always win, because when either player is at 5 sticks, the player who’s turn it is loses.  You can force your opponent down to five sticks if it is their turn with nine, down to nine if it is their turn with 13, and down to 13 if it is their turn with 17.

Here is a version of Nim that I made with Gamestar Mechanic. To make your selection, press Z.

Nim

I hope you like these games, and maybe even get an account!  

And speaking of games, I think that since Electrocity and Garbage Dreams are allowed in our class, I will tell you about them.  

Electrocity is all about running an energy- efficient and populous city and after 150 “turns”, you are graded on how well you ran your city.  You start with $400 and a population of 10,000.  You start with a small wind farm powering your electricity. If you go bankrupt or have a population of less than 1000 people, you lose.  I have a high score of  85%, or “A-”  if you just continually press “next turn”, (And always buy the power shortfall), you end up with 68 points, or a “B”  This was relevant to Global Citizenship because it is all about running a town.

Garbage dreams is all about recycling.  You get a pile of trash and recyclables and have to recycle and throw away the items that you find.  The recyclables need to be sorted into organics, paper, aluminum, tin, glass, and plastics.  You start with paper, organics, and $150.  You can expand your garbage empire, but you only have 8 “months” (turns).  The goal is to get as high of a percentage of recycling as possible. My high score is 13%.  You lose if you go bankrupt.  It is related to Global Citizenship because we were studying the great garbage patch, and pollution in general.

Place Out of Time banquet

For the last several weeks, the 5th-8th graders of Summers-Knoll have been participating in an online simulation called Place Out of Time. The project asks the question, what if we could bring the wisdom of history to address an issue of today? Participation has required the synthesis of numerous skills, including research, writing, improvisation, and acting, and has covered a variety of content areas; history, politics, society, and more. Eclipsing all of this has been how very fun and engaging it's been.

To begin with, each student selected a famous (or, in some cases, infamous) person that they wanted to research and portray. This yielded a motley assortment of luminaries, including a few fictional characters. We then portrayed these characters in the first person during in-school exercises. Gone were Margaret, Lee, and Alexandra, and in their places were Pocahontas, Socrates, and Nancy Drew.

After writing and posting an autobiography of their character, students began posting online on the Place Out of Time message board. There, they interacted with each other, students from around Michigan (and beyond!), and student facilitators from the University of Michigan, who made the whole thing possible. 

The issue that the students considered and debated was a complex one: The French law banning conspicuous religious symbols in schools. It's a controversial topic, and the simulation requires that students debate it in character, representing their character's views. For example, Matthew not only had to understand the issue at hand, but he had to make educated guesses about how Leonardo da Vinci might react to it. 

Of course, the complexities of this case are a lot for fifth-graders to wrap their minds around, so we've had numerous classroom and online discussions about much smaller, but related issues to ease into it. One line of conversation asked about the wisdom of school dress codes in general. Another found people arguing about whether children should have a voice in such matters at all. It has been fun and challenging for the students to portray the views of their characters, rather than their own. 

Watching them rise to the occasion has been a delight, and it all culminated with a field trip to the University of Michigan for the Place Out of Time banquet on Monday. 

For an hour-and-a-half, our students conversed, argued, and commiserated in character with other participants in the project. (One group of students drove all the way from Columbus, Ohio to participate!) 

The assembled group was an impressive sight to behold. 

Our own Victoria Woodhull, Angela Davis, Mr. Spock, Francis Scott Key, and Kim  Jong-il, bookended by Mohammed and "Pretty Boy" Floyd. 

Conversation and debate began in a large group, aided in part by some pre-planned drama played out by the University of Michigan student facilitators. 

Later, we broke into small groups for discussion and debate. You may not be surprised to hear that in many cases, Summers-Knoll kids were quick to jump into the debate. Here we see Jianmarco (in character as Mr. Spock) grilling a UM facilitator who was portraying former President of France Nicolas Sarkozy. 

Here we see a UM student facilitator leading a small group discussion while playing the role of former President of Turkey Kemal Ataturk. Our own Michael Jordan (Evan), Harry Potter (Henry), Nancy Drew (Alexandra), and Marcus Aurelius (Lev) look on.

Later, we dropped character and had pizza as we reflected on our experiences with the project. To wrap up, we were given a tour of the University of Michigan campus by one of the student facilitators. 

The entire project has been an enriching adventure, and I've hardly scratched the surface of the scope of it. Ask your student to tell you about it! They can even log into the website and give you a tour of some of the discussions they've been taking part in. We still have another week or so to go with the simulation, but I've already had a few students clamoring to get started with it for next year!

The Great Minds of History

A huge THANK YOU to the fine folks at the University of Michigan who invited us to participate, particularly Jeff Stanzler and his team of student facilitators!  

Alexandra Explains Student Exhibitions

Alexandra

Hi, I am Alexandra - I am 10 years old and love to write.  For this week, I am going to tell you all about the exhibitions that Jason’s 5th grade class has been working on.

An exhibition is a chance for us students to teach what we have learned.  One of the ways we could do an exhibition is to describe our topic by doing a hands-on experiment and explaining what we are doing as we go along.  For this first set of exhibitions, we have been asked to pick a topic that we have already learned a little about in class. I am studying The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.  So one of the activities I am doing is to take a large tub of water, put small pieces of garbage around the edges, and swirl it around to see if the trash gathers together.

I will now tell you how we do exhibitions:  We first decide what we want to do for the exhibition, and then get the topic approved by Jason. As you saw above, my topic is The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.  I decided to pick this topic because when we started this topic as a class, I became very interested. After we finished this topic, exhibitions came along, and I thought it would be cool to do that as my exhibition.  Second, we will take our time to get the entire lesson planned step by step. Third, we make sure all the materials are assembled in advance. Even if we could do something during the exhibitions, it is best to do as much as we can before it starts. Fourth, we do a few rehearsals so that we get all our mistakes out before the real thing.  Fifth, we do the exhibition hoping we do well!

A planning sheet to help us track our progress.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
The exhibitions I have seen have both been Evan's, and each had two lessons. The first one was about P.E., and also about the soil Evan collected from ScatterGood, a small boarding school in Iowa that Karl's 6, 7, 8 class went to during the theme of Farm-to-Table.  The second included a gnome math problem that Michael taught his group, and also an activity about the play Julius Ceasar.  I enjoyed Evan’s exhibitions and am excited to present my own!

Matthew summarizes the week

Matthew armed with a new pencil

Hi, this is Matthew, a student of Jason's class, A.K.A The Argonauts. Since October, we have been doing a research papers on ancient civilizations. We are now trying to finish them. Some people had to start over. For example, I am doing the Ancient Greek military. I think that many people are doing very well.

We have also been working on our Place Out of Time stuff. This week on P.O.O.T., we worked on something called a Bio-Cube:
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/cube_creator/.

Everybody is still trying to keep their own person a secret, and people aren’t succeeding much. So I won’t post my, or anybody else's, person.

In Music, we have been studying The Sphinx Organization, which is an organization for teaching kids without access to music to learn strings. Every year, Sphinx has a competition in musical skills, involving the people that Sphinx taught. We went on a field trip to watch three finalists compete for 1st. The three contestants were Lev Mamuya, Annelle Gregory, and Sterling Elliott. Lev Mamuya got 1st, Sterling Elliot got second, and Annelle Gregory got 3rd. They each got a prize of money; 1st: $5000, 2nd: $3500, and 3rd: $2000.

In Latin, we have been doing what we always have, and for people who don’t know what that is, I’ll fill in the blanks. We translate Latin sentences into English, and take single Latin words and find their English derivatives.

In Science, we are doing things on Digication. Digication is a online portfolio. We are using it to record our calorimetry projects. Here’s the link: http://www.digication.com. We are making a record of what we are doing and a “how to” on the experiment.  

Science Class.

Signing off, 
Matthew  

---

Thank you, Matthew! 

As Matthew mentioned, we were able to take a school trip (including everyone in grades 3 through 8!) to the beautiful Max M. Fisher Music Center in Detroit on Friday to attend one of the competitions. It was a marvelous opportunity, and we're grateful to Mr. Riccinto for arranging the trip. (Speaking of Mr. Riccinto, have you subscribed to his new music blog yet? If not, check it out!) 

Inside the Max M. Fisher Music Center

While waiting to hear who won, we were treated to a question and answer session. Students were invited to walk up to the stage and ask the conductor questions about Sphinx, the symphony, or anything else that was on their minds. Our own Noah was the first person to rush down to the mic to ask a question, which opened the floodgates of students. I was particularly impressed to see how many Summers-Knoll kids went up to the microphone to take advantage of this unique opportunity. It was a genuine pleasure to be in the company of so many bright, polite, and questioning kids! I was very proud of them on Friday! (Of course, I'm usually pretty proud of them.) 

I hope everyone has a wonderful break!

Melissa introduces Place Out of Time

Hi there, This is Melissa L., Rookie reporter. This week the 5th grade teacher, Charles Jason Depasquale (Jason), has made changes to the classroom blogging system. Instead of him doing everything, he thought up the brilliant idea of the students writing the blog, seeing the lessons through our eyes. When the sign-up sheet went up, I immediately put my name in big letters. But thats enough about me. Lets get learning!

Place out of time

(POOT)

This week, Karl Sikkenga’s class and Jason’s class started to do a U of M program called “Place Out Of Time”, Or POOT, for short. The main outline for this program is as follows:

The students pick out a historical figure of some importance and write a short summary of their lives. The students explain what they did, why they did it, their pet peeves, Their views, and all that jazz. When they have done that, They go deeper into their characters lives and really think about why you picked this person and make it a lot more emotional and real for you. Then you have a chat with, well, whoever. It could be a UM professor or your best friend or a UM student or the person your locker is next to. (In our case, hooks, not lockers.)

I think that this program is very interesting and that we, as students, will have a lot of fun With it.

Well, that’s pretty much it!

Ta-ta for now!

Melissa L., SK student.

---

Thank you, Melissa!


For more information on the Place Out of Time simulation, visit their website! There, you'll find some helpful introductory videos there explaining the project. Just like this one:








As Melissa mentioned, we'll all be contributing to the blog from now on. Our current schedule calls for two student entries a week (in addition to my own regular entries), so expect to hear a lot more about POOT and more in the weeks ahead!

Time for School

Time for School

Ken in 2003.

As part of our Global Citizenship theme, we've been watching the documentary Time for School. It's a fascinating PBS project that chronicles seven children from around the world as they begin their first year of school. The kids come from radically different cultures and backgrounds, and we've been talking about how different factors can help or hinder an education. For example, Ken from Japan lives in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. We watch as he begins school at six years old, and he has already learned to read by his first day of class. He has tremendous cultural and family support, as well as a backpack stuffed full of new supplies. 

Neeraj in 2003.

Compare Ken's experience to those of Neeraj. She is about 9 or 10 years old (she's not sure), and living in India. Her mother takes an extremely dim view of education, arguing that she doesn't have an education, so why would her daughter need one? She also complains that the educated males in their village are unable to find work, and asks why should she bother educating her daughter as well? Neeraj is allowed to attend school only after a full day of labor. She attends a night school huddled around a small lantern with other girls. She walks home by herself each night, and arrives in her home after the rest of the household has gone to sleep.

We also meet children from Kenya, Romania, Brazil, and Benin. The first installment aired in 2003, and the filmmakers followed up with each student three years later. The intention is to check in with each student over the course a twelve year period.

You can view the original installment here: Time for School (2003)

The first installment yielded such productive conversations that we decided to watch the 2006 follow-up. You can watch it online here: Back to School (2006)

There is also a third installment, but we've held off on it for now. We've been using what we've seen so far to think about what we've learned about each culture and society featured in the program, and it's caused us to examine our own as well.

The documentary has inspired strong interest in trying to connect to some international pen pals, which is something that I'm looking into. (I have a few leads, but I'd welcome suggestions!)

Read Aloud

Our current read aloud selection is called How Susie Bayer's T-Shirt Ended Up on Yusuf Mama's Back, an article by George Packer that originally appeared in The New York Times in 2002. In it, Mr. Packer follows a t-shirt donated to a thrift shop in Manhattan on a long journey across hemispheres, exploring the many hands it passes through along the way to its final destination in Africa. Like our studies of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the Materials Recovery Facility, it encourages us to think about the things that we own and use, and the effect they have on others when we discard them.