Swift Flyer~ November 22nd

Mon, Nov. 22 - Fri, Nov. 26 - No School - Thanksgiving Break

Thur, Dec. 23 - Fri, Dec. 31 - No School - Winter Break

Every Monday & Thursday, 3:00-4:30- Homework Club

While contact-tracing and COVID concerns remain a part of our daily lives at school, there is still so much fantastic interaction happening between students during everyday opportunities like class projects and snack-time games, or during special events, like our Minute-to-Win-It competition on Friday. Braden and Jackson were part of the finals in the cup-stacking competition below. We are thankful for these active school days and your engaged kids!

Swifties have been connecting their learning to the United Nations Sustainability Goals throughout the fall. Over the past two weeks, they developed action projects, specifically Swift Sustainability Action Projects (SSAP). Students first worked in small groups to identify which goals they feel most strongly about supporting. They then created posters highlighting actionable steps related to these goals. Once the posters were up, they used an affinity process where each student placed stickers on at least 12 projects of interest.

The project ideas with the most votes became part of our SSAP survey (the student version includes their names) which will be used to create student action groups. Parents, if you have any connections or resources related to the projects listed, please reach out to your child's core teacher. Thank you!

Seventh and eighth graders have been reading and summarizing articles related to inequities. They've answered questions such as: what injustice is being identified, what have activists done and what other action could be taken to move towards more social justice?

They then completed a summative assessment using evidences to support the claim, " It is important to recognize and describe multiple forms (attitudes, speech, behaviors, practices, and laws) of unfairness and injustices in our communities in order to create a more just world."

In addition to work around social justice, fifth and sixth graders are studying geography, practicing map skills and vocabulary. They ended the week by creating their own towns, identifying essential elements of a functional town and planning the ideal layout.

Fifth and sixth graders completed their unit on physical science this month. To prepare for the final assessment they organized essential vocabulary in a concept map (see examples from Ella and Maddie below). On the assessment, they supported a claim around the conservation of matter and chemical reactions using evidence and scientific reasoning. Their next unit focuses on climate change where we'll learn about natural greenhouse gases, the human factors which are increasing these gases, and finally solutions to reduce our impact. Photos below show Swifties collecting data in their own greenhouse gas model.

Seventh and eighth graders completed a unit on natural disasters by engineering levees to hold back a bucket of water. The design process included identifying the problem, researching past solutions, designing new solutions, testing their designs, and then rebuilding and retesting. We learned that water will take advantage of any opportunity to get through a barrier. Swifties also completed two summative assessments, one on analyzing data related to hurricane frequency and the other on explaining the phenomena of tsunami formations. Next, we begin exploring chemical reactions and the properties of matter.

UVM 4-H has some fantastic STEM enrichment programs for students coming up! All programs are FREE, registration is required.

• Nov 30 - Teen Science Cafe (virtual), Radio Frequency Engineering & How It Relates to Climate Change

• Dec 4 - UVM STEM Ambassadors Present: A STEM Showcase
  • Animal Science and Why We Need Vets: Pets, Vets and Germs - Oh My!
  • Everyday Engineering: Let's Build!
  • Sustainable Polymers: Making Bioplastics
  • Food Science: Know What You Put In Your Body!
  • Let's GO Build Robots!
    

• Dec 14 - Teen Science Cafe (virtual), Digital Phenotyping; Leveraging Machine Learning, Statistics, and Creativity to Model Human Health

Learn more about these programs and register at:

https://www.uvm.edu/extension/youth/announcements

And SAVE THE DATES!! More information will be available soon.

• Feb 3 - next session of 4-H World Changers: Learn to Code will begin. Participants will learn Python!

• Feb 12 - Discover Engineering, a full day event with workshops at UVM to promote the field of engineering and help youth understand different pathways they can take to pursue a future as an engineer.
• And we will be offering several other engineering opportunities in February in celebration of National Engineering Week which takes place at the end of the month. Stay tuned!

• VTeen 4-H Science Pathways Cafes will happen on the following dates, topics to be announced soon: Jan 11 (V), Jan 22 (I), Feb 5 (I), Feb 22 (V), Mar 19 (I), Mar 22 (V), Apr 9 (I), Apr 26 (V), May 17 (V) V=virtual, I=In-Person

• And more programs will be announced soon!