SEP Session 1, Day 8 (9-11)

Today in "From Hamlet to Black Panther," students participated in a creative playwriting workshop. In this workshop, students worked on writing plays that they will be sharing with fellow SEP students on the final day (tomorrow). After this, students did a super fun improv activity. For this activity, students gave their classmates topics to give a 1 minute improv presentation on. Topics included: pigs killing children in amusement parks, a new species of purple frogs in Kenya that vomit gold, everyone in the world's shoelaces coming untied at the same time, a dog filling in craters on the moon, and more!

Today in "Dimensions of Disadvantage," students discussed representation of identity and intersectionality in TV and movies. Students began class by reading the article "How can TV and movies get representation right? We asked 6 Hollywood diversity consultants" (linked below). In groups of three, students then discussed the following questions: do you agree with the claims in the article? what are some criteria for good representation? what does 'authentic' representation look like? Following the small group discussions, the class participated in a whole group discussion around representation. Later in class, students watched a episode from the show Pose. Pose made history with the largest cast of transgender actors.

Today in "Parsing Primary Sources: Learning to Read Like a Historian," SEP 9-11 Historian’s went on a field trip to UVA’s Albert and Shirley’s Small Special Collection Library. Students learned about small collection libraries and how they can use them as resources and use the materials available. Students had the opportunity to look at rare books, documents, and newspapers from the civil rights movement, many of which told stories from right here in Charlottesville and tackled topics such as integration of many local schools.

Today in "Periodic Explorations," students witnessed the freezing of a racquetball ball, made of polymer, in liquid nitrogen. The ball then was shattered. This was a demonstration focused on temperature, intermolecular forces, and various materials' chemical properties.

Best,

Nicole, Olivia, and Abby