Middle School

Over the past few weeks, Middle School IE students have completed their novel study and literary analysis unit. They read the book Wonder and analyzed key elements such as character changes and themes. Students also wrote literary analysis essays to demonstrate their understanding. Another group focused on developing various language skills, including speaking, writing, reading, and listening. Way to go!

In the last two weeks, biology students have presented their research on human interactions and impact on the environment. Students have talked about a wide array of topics including building greenways in Paris to cultivating urban forests in Singapore to clearing the skies of Linfen, China, once known as one of the most polluted cities on the Earth. Topics also included the impact of urban nighttime lights on migratory birds along the Mississippi flyway in the central US and of resort lights on the beaches of Florida on the nesting of loggerhead turtles and the nighttime navigation of their young towards the ocean. Students were able to draw on previous units to explain top-down control of an ecosystem by sharks and the role of grazing sheep in promoting meadow wildflower diversity. Students also shared their research on the sometimes intentional and disastrous introduction of invasive species such as the Burmese python in the Everglades of Florida, the cane toad to Australia, and the small Indian mongoose to tropical islands around the world and how these animals disrupted the native ecosystems. In their research, they focused on identifying possible solutions and challenges to problems created by humans in a complex, interconnected world.

The 11- and 13-year-old students have been creating small comic books using different apps. In doing so, they have developed a range of skills including digital creativity, storytelling, and basic graphic design. They have demonstrated great imagination and technical ability in using the apps to combine images and text effectively. Their work shows strong attention to detail and an impressive understanding of how to engage an audience through visual narratives. Overall, they have done a fantastic job expressing their ideas and sharpening their digital literacy.

Students in the Foundations of Algebra class have been exploring real-world investigation problems using the Pythagorean Theorem. They were given a specific problem to assess and solve, worked hard on creating digital or poster presentations, and enthusiastically presented their findings and sketches to the class. Great work, kids!

As part of the 13-year-old essentials of writing unit, students practice a variety of grammar and punctuation marks throughout the year. This knowledge is to then be incorporated in their future written works. The students pictured are working together to complete exercises on how to properly use hyphens and dashes in writing.

Students in the 13-year-old class are currently studying media literacy and media creation. These courses focus on helping students to identify bias in various media and to develop skill in effectively presenting stories and/ or factual information in a variety of media formats. Students research best practices for using visual imagery and sound to create a compelling media presentation.

Students explored how parabolic shapes appear in the real world—from basketball arcs to bridges and fountains. They identified key features of these curves and used digital tools to create quadratic regressions, expressing the equations in both vertex and standard form. To showcase their work, students created informative posters and took part in peer discussions to evaluate and reflect on each other’s findings.