Flashback! Ad project videos

You may recall our studies of the tools of persuasion earlier in the year. For a refresher, visit these two blog entries: 

Identity, advertising, branding, and marketing

Ad project, round two! 

While sifting through materials for the year, I realized that we hadn't actually posted our commercials online. Here are two for your enjoyment: 

Spring Trip 2014: Fun with static electricity!

As part of our tour of the Niagara Power Project, we had a hands-on experience with a Van de Graff generator. 

Lee and Karenna

Student Blogs: Christopher writes about our Bigfoot films

During the Mythology theme, our class made videos about Bigfoot. The videos were Bigfoot because Bigfoot is a myth. We made them to demonstrate good and bad science. Almost everyone had some bad science in their videos. A lot of us made people faking Bigfoot. 

In the video by Eleanor, Emma, and Margaret, Bigfoot specialist Pearl Green is hunting for Bigfoot. In Christopher, Gabe, and David’s, two normal people trying to fake Bigfoot. In Adi, KK, and Keira’s video, Adi is a reporter and Keira keeps faking Bigfoot. In Matthew, Lee, and Evan’s, Matthew was a stupid scientist who was trying to find Bigfoot. Lee is a faker and Evan is a hunter. 

Quotes about Bigfoot: 

Lee “I had an awesome costume.” 

Matthew “It was fun demonstrating bad science” 

Marcel “My costume was kind of embarrassing.”

During math, Sam had us dip our feet in paint to measure foot length and gait. Using that data, we made scatter plots and histograms.

The last (full) day!!

Eighth grade graduation is at 2:00 this afternoon. Until then, we are playing board games as an important end-of-the-year team building exercise.

Spring Trip 2014: Matthew recounts the Hornblower boat tour

Note the rainbow on the left! 

Of the many spectacular things we did on our class trip to Niagara falls and back, the boat trip directly up to the falls might have been the most amazing.

Student blogs: Lee tells us about the Humanities projects

Immigrants to Detroit

Hi!  I’m Lee, and I’m writing the blog today!  Today’s blog entry is about our humanities projects.  Here it goes!

Spring Trip 2014: Karenna writes about Old Fort Niagara

Our first stop on Jason and Sam’s ⅚ class Spring trip was Old Fort Niagara, in the state of New York. On the outside you couldn’t tell how many traps were lying in wait for the British, there were deep ditches, stake walls, and cannons hiding behind the small round hills. At first glance, it looks like some kind of moat, but if you take a closer look, steep ditches create numerous hills, high walls, and the tight fences prevent people who don’t know where the entrance, is from coming in.

Spring Trip: Adi on the butterfly conservatory

When the 5th and 6th graders went on their Spring Trip, their first stop in Canada was a very magical place, the Butterfly Conservatory. The Conservatory was an awesome sight. We saw many different species of butterfly everywhere. There were blue butterflies, orange butterflies, tiger striped butterflies, red butterflies, purple butterflies, black butterflies, yellow, black, and red butterflies, and many, many more butterflies.

Spring Trip: Gabe writes about the Journey Behind the Falls

Gabe points out the viewing platforms.

Spring Trip: Kaeli on "Niagara's Fury"

Kaeli and Nik on a Ferris wheel in Niagara Falls

Hey people! As you know, we went to Niagara falls. Or did you? Anyways, We went to a 4-D movie called “Niagara’s Fury” It’s about the history of Niagara’s history. It was about half an hour. It really fun. Sydney and I were freaking out half the time. “I got wet.” Said Sydney. That’s what she liked about it. I liked that half the time you were screaming and the other half you are in awe. Marcellin said “I liked the 4-d part.” As you can see it was really fun. “It was AWESOME!” Said Karenna. And it was. We got soaked, and had a ton of fun. We also did a lot of other stuff, but you’ll hear about them in other blogs.

Peace! 
Kaeli

The end is near...

As we near the end of the year, a (partial) group portrait. (Blog posts about the Spring trip coming soon!)

3/4 dress rehearsal

Joanna's class has been working on staging two short plays. This afternoon, we took a break from writing reflections on the year to provide an audience for one of the dress rehearsals.

2014 Spring Trip: The Niagara Power Project

NOTE: Whoops! Here's a brief blog post from our 2014 Spring Trip that apparently never got posted. I'm publishing it one year late partially so that there's a more complete record of that amazing trip, and partially because it's a cool photo of Sydney that might otherwise go to waste.

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You may remember that we spent some time learning about dams earlier in the year. Our studies then included students role playing a character with a specific vested interest in building or opposing a dam near the town. Each student wrote a persuasive essay articulating their position.

Our simulation was about a small, rural town that was about sixty miles from the next nearest city. While touring the massive Niagara Power Project, we found that though the scales were radically different, the issues were very similar, including the controversial acquisition of tribal lands to make way for construction.

You can read a little more about the history of the site here.