May 17-21, 2021 - A busy week!

Finally, the 7th graders shared their projects on the Middle Ages with one another -including two tremendous Medieval feasts!!

April, 2021

Students have been working for the past 3 weeks on creating paper roller coasters. This project, in which students demonstrate their understanding of Newton's Laws, combined 7th and 8th graders working together in planning and executing the paper roller coasters.

7th graders are wrapping up their independent projects on life in the Middle Ages while 8th graders recently completed their projects on changemakers of the modern era. Photos of all projects to come soon.

Eighth-grade students have also been working on a long-term project: vertical gardens. Students have been designing and building their own watering and lighting systems for their plants. Here you can see two different models. In the center, you can see a fish tank as a source of water, with grow lights, and on the right, there is a bottle model that uses the upper half of bottles as a holder for the gro-balls and plants.

March 29-april 2nd

Check out the photos of the 7th and 8th graders working on some hands-on activities demonstrating Newton's Laws of Motion. Students had to figure out how seatbelts, hard boiled eggs, spring scales and much more demonstrate the laws of motion. These learning activities are building towards the creation of paper roller coasters through which students will show their understanding of the laws of motion as well as kinetic and potential energy. Students also got to spend a little time on the playground creating their own demonstrations of Newton's 3 laws.

It's March!!!!

It's been a minute since our last update. Students have been engaging with their social studies projects. 8th graders have been focusing on American History through a social justice lens. 7th graders have been learning about the Middle Ages. Both groups are looking at the forces of change that move societies in new directions.

As the weather starts to warm up we are excited to take more of our learning outside. This week both groups got out for some longer walks as well as outdoor reading and writing.

January 4-15

Welcome to 2021! In the Experiential Learning Program we finished up our Natural Disaster projects with a whole group share. 7th and 8th graders shared their project and gave each other feedback. Projects ranged from apps to detect wildfires or alert you to impending hurricane flooding, to pet rescue programs, and spark-sucking vacuums. Check out some photos of the groups sharing their work.

Our next unit will be a more Social Studies focused unit on change makers. 8th graders will be focusing on American History and 7th graders will be exploring the time period known as the Middle Ages. Both groups will be focusing on the forces, people and ideas that create societal change.

December

These last few weeks have been kind of crazy! Mr. Kerr and I are really happy to be back in person and we've been going full steam ahead with our new project unit on Natural Disasters. Students completed a series of mini-lessons on Hurricanes and Wildfires and are now in the planning phase of creating a product or service that will help people deal with the problems caused by these natural disasters. Pictured below is our outdoor experiment in wildfires. Students created a variety of mini forests using variables like the shape of the land, proximity of the trees, and amount of underbrush. We then observed at a safe distance as each forest was decimated by fire.

November 2- November 13

These last 2 weeks we've been presenting our final project proposals for our ecosystem services projects. Students presented in a combined (socially distant) group in the LLC while giving each other feedback. It was a great celebration and culmination of learning. We also did a kick off scavenger hunt for our new unit on Natural Disasters. This included a visit with our local law enforcement officers who talked about the role of police and firefighters in responding to natural disasters. We will be continuing this work by focusing on hurricanes and wildfires and how they are impacted by climate change.

October 19-October 30

This week we went out to Turkey Hill Farm. In addition to exploring the trails and a little bit of apple picking, students completed an ecosystem services audit of the area. They will use the notes they took to complete a take-home assessment next week. Students are wrapping up work on their land use project proposals and we will celebrate in school next week by watching the videos they created.

October 5-October 16

In the past 2 weeks students have begun to draft their project proposals for their ecosystem services projects. Ideas range from mountain biking trails to butterfly gardens to projects that deal with food insecurity and renewable energy. We are excited to see the different ways students are embracing the challenge.

We have been lucky enough to arrange for distanced outdoor experiences with both Philip Mathieu from the Cape Elizabeth Land Trust and Jim Rowe from the Cape Elizabeth Historical Society. These local experts were able to share their unique perspective on how the land is being used and has been used in the past here in Cape.

September 28-October 2

This week brought a deep dive into our first class novels; Enrique's Journey for 8th graders and Ghost Boys for 7th graders. Each class will be interweaving social studies work into their novel study, tacking issues of systemic racism and immigration.

During project time students completed one pagers which demonstrated their understanding of ecosystem services and worked to clarify their ideas in card sort activities and group brainstorming. Next week we'll be meeting with Cape Elizabeth Land Trust educator Philip Mathieu and learning more about what the organization does to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Week 1 and 2 update

We've been getting to know our new groups of students through some community building and outdoor exploration. Our first unit is learning about ecosystem services. Students will learn about local ecosystems and the various ways they are used and valued by humans. Students will create a project proposal to maintain or preserve some aspects of a local ecosystem. We will be weaving together science and social studies learning targets such as argument writing and research skills.

Here are a few pictures of our first activities and adventures: