This year we have talked about building design and eco-friendly measures. We are combining these concepts to plan and create models of what we think elementary schools will be like in 2050. Considerations include how grade levels will be designated. Will they be the traditional format we currently follow in elementary school where students are in mostly self contained classrooms by age/grade level, or will the educational format be more skill based allowing for more movement throughout the day based on curricular area much like that of a middle or high school? What type of technology will students and staff utilize in the future. Will there be charging stations in rooms for personal electronic devices? Will school libraries still have hard copy books or just electronic copies? How will schools be designed to be more energy efficient? These are some of the questions students are addressing with this project. Students are creating floor plans as well as models to show the complete school campus as well. The conversations have been very interesting! We just may have a future architect among us who will actually design a real school in 2050!
On Friday, January 15, 2016, we had a guest speaker visit students at Basehor Intermediate School. In fact, it was the mother of one of our students, Mrs. Morey. She works for the Environmental Protection Agency and spoke to students about ways they are already protecting the environment and new things they could do. She discussed options to control pests without using chemicals. She provided students with fun educational activity books, posters, and a fun highlighter. We greatly appreciate her generosity of time and materials to help us learn more about protecting our environment and career options in the field of environment studies.
This week students returned from holiday break and it was so great to see them again! During our short school week we did fun investigative activities to discover some cool cause and effect relationships. We learned how to turn Coke clear using milk, how to create moving color art using milk, food coloring, and dish detergent, as well as discovered that the iron in our food is the same you would find in metal objects! We moved cereal flakes with a strong magnet (this also worked with a $1 bill). We blended cereal with water then stirred it with a plastic spoon while holding our magnet to the outside of the plastic cup. It collected iron from the cereal and we could move it around. The students were amazed! We also took that collected iron and placed it on our finger and watched it jump from our fingertips to the magnet. Lastly, we microwaved Ivory soap to see its reaction. After it cooled we turned it into realistic looking snow and created winter scene art. It was a fun return to the classroom.
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