Thanks for reading our Mid-Year STEM Newsletter. It was great to see so many of you at STEM Family Night in the Fall. We appreciate everything the students, parents, and faculty did to make our 3rd Family Night a great success.

After STEM Family Night, our quest to spend more time getting to know each other outside of classes continued with STEM Family Bowling, hosted by Mrs. Konzem, and STEM STEAM Night at the DMA, hosted by Mr. Hieger. This semester, we are hard at work planning more activities for our STEM family. Upcoming, we've got a visit from our RISD middle school students on January 20th and RamNation Celebration/STEM Night on January 23rd where our STEM teachers will showcase PBLs and class activities. Be sure to check out the STEM Coffee House in room E208. More information below.

Most STEM Teachers make use of Google Classroom to manage student communication and assignments. Did you know that parents can get daily or weekly (your choice!) updates automatically from Classroom with a Gmail address?

Guardian email summaries include:

• Missing work—Work that’s late at the time the email was sent
• Upcoming work—Work that’s due today and tomorrow (for daily emails) or work that’s due in the upcoming week (for weekly emails)
• Class activity—Announcements, assignments, and questions recently posted by the teacher.

As a guardian, you must receive and accept an email invitation before you can receive email summaries. Only teachers and administrators from your student’s school can send these invitations. You can see a sample email summary by clicking here. Be advised, this is a generic summary and does not represent the STEM US History class.

These are the STEM course websites currently available and many more are under construction.

• Ms. Argueta's AP Human Geography and World Geography
  
• Ms. Azhar's Classes
  
• Mrs. Barbknecht's Classes
  
• Mrs. Berdea's Classes
  
• Ms. Bilbray's Classes
  
• Mr. C's Classes
  
• Mrs. Foster Payne's Classes
  
• Mrs. Konzem's Classes
• Mr. Pastrana's Classes
  
• Mrs. Threadgill's Classes
  

The MIT Women's Initiative will be on-campus to meet with some of our students on January 26th and January 27th.

According to their website:

"During the month of January, enthusiastic women studying engineering, math, or science at MIT make presentations at high schools nationwide with the goal of encouraging women to consider a career in STEM. Presentations typically include activities that engage students to think about science and engineering concepts, demonstrations from projects presenters have worked on at MIT and in industry, and information about the breadth of fields in STEM. Typically presenters also incorporate personal stories about how they chose their fields of study. Women's Initiative is not intended to recruit for MIT but rather to provide information and encourage high school women to explore careers in science, engineering, and mathematics."

Website: http://web.mit.edu/wi/

Berkner's Mighty Ram Band, including many STEM students, got to travel to San Antonio to participate in the State UIL competition where they placed 21st out of 39 schools.

Website: http://berknerband.com/home/
Twitter: @Berkner_Band

The Berkner Symphony Full Orchestra performed in December in Chicago at the 70th annual Midwest Conference. According to the orchestra site, " Midwest is an International Band and Orchestra conference and is the largest of its kind outside of Texas." Ours was the first orchestra from RISD to be invited to this conference. Furthermore, "Only three full orchestras from across the country received an invitation to perform at this conference."

Website: http://berknerorchestra.org/

Our STEM Senate stepped up and decorated our hallway for Berkner HS Homecoming Week! E-Hall turned into STEM City with heroes and villains watching over us. They did such a good job that STEM won third place in the hallway decorating school spirit competition! The STEM hall was, however, the ONLY hall designed and decorated exclusively by students!

Mrs. Slaight's students have been reading Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. This classic American novel addresses issues of technology, censorship, and politics, which the students will be exploring during a guided PBL.

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them"

-- Ray Bradbury

Freshmen in Mr. C's physics classes worked on...

Freshman AP Human students have been working hard all semester. They enjoyed researching and debating on the applicability of Thomas Malthus to modern times

APUSH students demonstrated their knowledge by "talking history" to review for a test and by researching an invention of the 1st Industrial Revolution. They then sought investment money during a "Shark Tank" simulation activity. And they looked sharp, too!

According to the AVID website:

"AVID National Demonstration Schools are exemplary models of the AVID College Readiness System."

At an AVID National Demonstration School, visitors can observe:

• AVID as a schoolwide approach to college readiness
• Evidence of student achievement schoolwide
• Strong and committed leadership to college readiness for all students at both school and district levels
• A center of learning for AVID best practices schoolwide
• A committed team of trained AVID educators dedicated to successful implementation of the AVID College Readiness System for all students
• Models for excellent inquiry-based AVID tutorials—both in the AVID Elective and, in some schools, selected content classrooms
• A showplace of the commitment and synergy that a strong AVID System creates for schoolwide college readiness

Email: marsha.foster@risd.org
Website: https://goo.gl/gTzaxR
Location: 1600 E Spring Valley Rd, Richardson, TX, United States
Phone: 469-593-7000