SEP Session 1, Day 3 (5-8)

Each day, we will feature several courses. Throughout the session, we will feature as many courses as possible.

Yesterday in "Periodic Explorations," rising students in seventh and eighth grade were introduced to single replacement reactions. Some of the activities that students participated in were learning about the mining of metals like gold, silver, copper, etc. and alchemy. Students learned that alchemy was claimed to be the transformation of base metals into other metals. Students had the chance to "witness" alchemy in progress. They saw copper chloride in water (left) react with aluminum (right) to produce copper and aluminum chloride. This was a single replacement reaction because aluminum replaced copper in the reaction. It was really cool!

The first field trip of session one occurred today! Students in "Do as Romans Do" took a walking tour of UVA's Lawn, Old Cabell Hall, and the Amphitheater. Students observed and discussed the architecture in place.They identified the columns they saw and analyzed the differences among the Pavilions' structures. In addition, they also heard about UVA folklore on secret societies and ghosts, saw Edgar Allan Poe's room, and admired the Rotunda. 

Teachers Viness Eugene ("The Energizers and Catalyzers in the Biochemical Process") and Renata Germino ("Explorations in Neuroscience") have been combining their 5-6 classes for the last half hour of the day. In the last half hour, students in each class have the opportunity to teach their peers in the other class what they have been learning about. Students have loved sharing their knowledge with their peers. This practice helps students cement their learning as well as provides an opportunity to practice public speaking to a small group in a low-risk environment.

In "Explorations in Neuroscience," students have been exploring various bodily processes including hearing, smell, and taste. Students worked in small groups to choose a bodily processes/system to create a poster on. They then presented these posters to the students in "The Energizers and Catalyzers in the Biochemical Process."

Students in "The Energizers and Catalyzers in the Biochemical Process," have been exploring the biochemistry of bananas! Today, the 5-6 class had the opportunity to share what they have learned with students in "Explorations in Neuroscience."

Students explained that the amount of sugar in a banana increases as it ripens before decreasing (shown on top left). They also taught their peers how to use a microscope and refractometer to look at slides of banana.

Today in "On the brink...Innovations in Warfare in WWII," students watched a brief video on the War in 1941 to set the context for the rest of class. Students were highly engaged, raising their hands to ask questions throughout the video, and deepening their own understanding as well as their classmates.

Students were then broken into groups to investigate technology and innovations used by the allies to in the Battle of the Atlantic. For those who don't know, The Battle of the Atlantic was a battle to control that Atlantic shipping lanes and the longest naval battle in WWII. Stations explored the impact of radar, destroyer escorts, and air power.

Today in "So You Want to Change the World", students worked in pairs to begin researching their chosen problem/topic. Students were asked to think about, "what exactly is your problem? why is it important? How many people does it affect? Who? When? For how long? What solutions have been proposed? Have they worked? Do people seem to care about this problem? Can you get stakeholder input on the problem?" Students then presented their research to their classmates.

5-6 Topics: ocean pollution, gender equality, too much screen time for kids, LGBTQ+ rights, LGBTQ+ rights and gender equality, and helping students with learning/cognitive disabilities.

7-8 Topics: gender equality (wage gap), people tricked into contracts (due to lack of education), low-income women/access to sanitary supplies, lack of education (in primary grades, in sub-saharan Africa), lack of comprehensive sex ed (in US public schools), lack of clean water (as a result of plastic manufacturing), transparency in labor (companies do not tell consumers about their process/public does not know how their products are made).

Today students in, "Engineering Hogwarts" split up into groups and designed different sections of a colony based on Star Trek. Groups were assigned to design food, water, agriculture, medical, housing and transportation components for the colony. Each group built their parts and presented it to the class. The class then came together to assemble the different parts of the colony and to create a constitution. This activity gave students the opportunity to experience designing in both small and large groups.

Today in "Architecture: Redesign in order to Reuse", students explored drawing using measurement guidelines. Students also learned how to move from drawing an object using a lot of details and moving toward simplifying their drawings to sketching only representations of the objects using the artists understanding of the shapes and lines that make up their object. 

Best,

Nicole, Olivia, and Abby