Superheroes Unite!

7th April 2022Duncan Robertson

With thanks to High Tech High for allowing us to share their student’s beautiful work.

The Superhero project explored what superhero qualities each student possessed and how these unique “superpowers” con-tribute to our classroom and school community. The students investigated fictional superheroes and found a common theme in their powers.

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The students examined everyday superheroes in their community, learning about their different jobs and respon-sibilities. Each first grader considered the questions: What super qualities can you bring to better our community? How do super-heroes work together? Students designed and made a costume to represent their superpower. The children also created social stories featuring their superpower in a comic book format. The stories were then made into short films with the students role playing in their superhero costume. These films and the students’ experiences were then shared at a school gathering.

 

Teacher Reflection

There were several things we loved about this project. An ab-solute highlight was the excitement in the children’s faces when they realized that everyone possesses a superpower and no mat-ter how old you are, you can make a difference. We often found them using their superpowers like Grit Girl, Thinking Man and Happiness Gal on the playground or during class time when no one was watching. At a table you would hear “Don’t give up, use grit!” when participating in a difficult math activity or “I’ll get a band-aid!” as Helpful Boy ran off to help a friend who had fallen down on the blacktop. It empowered the children to take owner-ship in making a positive change in their classroom and school.

 

Student Reflections

The Superhero project taught me that I should help people and I should take big risks for the people I care for.

—Nia

I learned that superheroes are real and help us everyday like po-lice officers and firefighters. Everyone is a superhero!

—Giovanni

 

To learn more about this project and others,

Visit the HTH unboxed website

Water We Doing?

7th April 2022Duncan Robertson

With thanks to High Tech High for allowing us to share their student’s beautiful work.

Tenth graders stepped into the shoes of scientists and became stewards of our environment by implementing solutions to local water issues.

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Students learned about the history of the world through water, collaborated with local and regional organizations, and engaged in scientific research to test solutions to issues such as water pollution, lack of clean water access, overuse or waste of water supplies, and endangered marine life. Students submitted their action plans to the Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge, a national K-12 environmental sustainability competition, and created a documentation panel and interactive exhibit to showcase their work.

 

Teacher Reflection

The Siemens competition challenged our students to think like scientists and tackle real problems that affect real people. By providing a rigid but broad framework, we were able to incorporate student voice and choice in the design and execution of each group’s action plan. Solutions included a solar-heated water bag, a three-step filtration for our school’s reclaimed water supply, and a quantitative study of the impact of hand sanitizer on water usage and bathroom resources.

 

Student Reflections

The research and hours of time that we spent working have changed me. Every day brought me closer to my group and my planet, giving me a strong understanding of why I should care and what I can do to help.

—Aine P

 

This project helped us construct an idea of our issue based on the expertise of professionals in the field. The Siemens challenge made us realize that the work we were doing would have an impact on the community that would transcend HTHCV.

—Rafael R

 

The level of learning was incomparable to anything I’ve ever done. Giving back to a community and knowing that your hard work is currently serving a purpose and benefiting a family might just be the best feeling in the world.

—Erika A

 

To learn more about this project and others,

visit the HTH Unboxed website.

Children’s Astronomy Book Project

6th April 2022Duncan Robertson

With thanks to High Tech High for allowing us to share their student’s beautiful work.

Students created an illustrated book to teach young children about our universe. In pairs, students chose and researched topics in astronomy.

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They wrote essays about their topics, learning about outlining, thesis sentences, topic sentences, supporting evidence, and MLA citation in their Humanities class. They then composed stories about their topics for 8-10 year olds, creating storyboards with scripts and hand drawn art, and editing mock books through several rounds of critique. Their stories and artwork, published through blurb.com, are available at the HTH bookstore: http://www.hightechhigh.org/books.

Teacher Reflection

The most rewarding aspect was the numerous drafts the students completed for their essay. I was glad they understood that correctness was the goal, and however many drafts it took to achieve that goal was what they had to do. Some students did more than eight drafts. Reading that many essays was a challenge, but by taking this seriously we sent the message that doing something was not good enough. It had to be done right.

—Aaron Commerson

Student Reflection

One important thing we got out of this project was realizing how to communicate and collaborate well. The idea of the story was hard to come up with, as well as editing it to ensure the content was correct and understandable. Even making pictures was a challenge, because we had a tough time deciding what to do and how to do it. In the end, we were able to learn some valuable skills that we will need to use in our future at HTH, including communication, time management and, if we create another product for children, the ability to simplify concepts.

—Ethan Chan and Michael Thompson, 9th grade

To learn more about this project and others Visit the HTH unboxed website.

Resilience Café Project

6th April 2022Duncan Robertson

With thanks to High Tech High for allowing us to share their student’s beautiful work.

During the Resilience Café Project, 8th graders learned about resilient heroes from the past and present, and explored together what it means to be resilient. Students identified specific attributes to celebrate and communicate through their work.

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They connected a resilient historical figure, a resilient community member and their own personal story of resilience through writing and by creating an art piece full of symbolism. They honored their resilient community members by inviting them to a night of celebration through music, spoken word, poetry and artwork.

 

Teachers’ Reflection

Students took the basic concept for the project and made it their own. The elements of choice, and the fact that students were working on this project in two out of their three classes, allowed for creativity and personal connections to emerge. Throughout the project, the energy was high, the creativity was buzzing, and the students were empowered to honor the resilience all around them!

 

Student Reflections

During this project I learned about the Civil War, Brown vs. The Board of Education, The Civil Rights Movement, and the Blues. I also learned that resilience is the ability to endure and be strengthened by the hardships you face. Basically, learning about resilience teaches us to go out of our comfort zone and to know that the struggle will help us become a better person.

—Andrew Sanchez

 

I loved exhibition because I felt proud of all of my pieces. Everybody liked my art piece and I felt like it represented my community member and historical figure. I was able to have in-depth conversations with other parents about my art.

—Hannah Hoang

 

I felt so good about this project! I was in my element considering we could do music. People were blown away by our song and that meant a lot to me. We got so many compliments that night. My grandmother said that she felt honored by our performance and was so proud of me.

—Lizzie Mooney

 

To learn more about this project and others,

visit the HTH Unboxed website.

The Bee Project

5th April 2022Duncan Robertson

Why do we need honey bees and how do they affect our world? In order to answer these questions, second graders investigated the role of bees in our ecosystem, and the various ways bees are being threatened.


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Once their research was complete, students became advocates for the bees. Working collaboratively in groups, students wrote and performed bee plays to educate the school community about the threats to bees. They also wrote letters to the city and large corporations, planted over 200 bee-friendly plants, and built beehives to donate to a community organization in Mexicali.

Teacher Reflection:

This has been one of my favorite projects because it gave students the opportunity to advocate for what they feel is important and to make a change in our community. I knew this project was meaningful when students insisted we write letters to our local government asking if they could plant more pesticide-free flowers for bees. Our students were so proud as they stood by the plants that they put into the ground with their own hands. I think that what impacted me most as a teacher was to see my students take ownership of their learning. When they began to understand the problems that honeybees were facing, they also realized that there were ways for them to advocate for change. Students began to ask questions about why people, namely adults and big corporations, are not doing more to help the honeybees. After building beehives to send to Mexicali to help a community of women and children there, students felt a sense of accomplishment and contribution to solving a problem that they realized is affecting us all.

Student Reflections:

I learned that if we didn’t have bees we wouldn’t have most of our favorite food.

—Silas

Working in a group helped me because I got more ideas. None of us is as smart as all of us.

—Aiden

To learn more about this project and others, visit the HTH Unboxed website.