~8th Grade Earth Day~

One of my goals this year was to help my students realize that they can be leaders. Helping students understand this can be as easy as finding ways that they can be part of something bigger than themselves, showing them their potential, and believing in them.  That was the eighth grade teachers' goal when we created what we hope will be a tradition that students look forward to at Central Jr. High School.

  The eighth graders collected recyclable materials and brought them into school.  They synergized with other students, worked in small groups, collaborated on an idea and used the recyclable materials to create a piece of art or something with a purpose.  Some groups created robot-looking sculptures or sculptures that resembled a person.  Other groups used plastic, cardboard, and paper to create flower pots, bird feeders, and even a new kind of garbage can that would hold recyclable materials and let the liquid filter through to the bottom. 

After the groups finished their creations, each student wrote about the purpose or wrote a story about their sculpture.  Then, each group chose the one story they wanted to share.  Every group showed off their project and one of their stories to the entire 8th grade class which allowed different leadership opportunities.  Throughout the morning, we gave each student the opportunity to be creative, synergize, express themselves through building, writing, and speaking.  Each student stood up in front of their peers and read a statistic about recycling.  Then, we discussed recycling issues and how we can do our part to help our planet.

Overall, I think it was a great project that the students got more out of then just putting some junk together to make it look cool.  I hope we've sparked some interest in recycling and helped our students become leaders of their generation. 

Ani....what??

ANIMOTO!!  This week my high school classes have been working on creating a video using Animoto.com complete with music.  Each of the videos shows all of the steps of working out and graphing a quadratic function.  We did this project instead of taking a "traditional" quiz and the students really seemed to enjoy it. 

The students were such good leaders of their own education this week and I'm so proud of them.  They worked hard on getting the "math" part of the project right so their video would be presentable to the rest of the world. Take a look at them on our classroom wiki and see for yourself; they're VERY impressive!   

Barbie's Been Bungee Jumping!

You read it right!  Barbie has been bungee jumping in our classroom!  She put her trust in a group of eighth graders and took the plunge!  After each jump, the students collected data including how many rubber bands she had holding her up and exactly how far she fell before the first recoil.  This week we will graph the data and analyze it.   We are going to draw a line of best fit and discuss all of the aspects of linear functions.

The students were great leaders of their own education during this activity.  They were working in groups of three and everyone in the group had a job.  All 31 of them did their jobs enthusiastically and without complaint; I only heard an occasional outburst when Barbie hit her head on the ground!  I have never been more proud of this particular group of students! 

No Barbie's were hurt in the making of the following videos.....