SEP Session 2, Day 3 (5-8)

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

Today in "Do As Romans Do" campers, took a field trip to UVA's Lawn. Students had the opportunity to view real-world examples of Roman-inspired architecture. The classes tour of the lawn included the Pavillions, Amphitheater, and of course the Rotunda. Students walked the lawn and learned about the history of the UVA and its unique architecture. 

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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.

Before heading over to "The Energizers and Catalyzers in the Biochemical Process" students in "Explorations in Neuroscience," continued their studies of the brain. After watching a cow dissection video in preparation for their dissections on Friday, students participated in eight various stations. Each station was focusing on a different area or part of the brain including, but not limited to the occipital, parietal, temporal, and frontal lobes, the pituitary gland, and the corpus callosum. 

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Today in "The Energizers and Catalyzers in the Biochemical Process" students looked at bananas at various stages of ripeness and plantains under the microscope. Some of the samples were stained with iodine and some were not. After the experiment, students from "Explorations in Neuroscience" visited the class to learn from the biochemistry students and have the opportunity to use the microscopes themselves.

The "Solar Circuits - Solar Homes" class spent the afternoon students continued to learn about huge solar projects around the world. From China to Egypt, students were introduced to various solar powered projects. One of which was the airport in India that is 100% solar-powered. Additionally, students learned that the sun produces more than 130x the amount of power in one year than all fossil fuels combined.

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. Immediately following the whole group construction, was an in depth discussion about what was easy and difficult about working in such a large group. Students noted that they were good at generating a lot of ideas but struggled to narrow down their ideas. This activity gave students the opportunity to learn about what it is like for engineers to work in small and large groups and the drawbacks and benefits of each.

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Today in "Life is a Balancing Act," students worked in pairs to complete four challenges based on the art of tightrope walking. The first challenge was to balance a cardboard "person", the second was to balance their "person" on a tightrope, the third was to balance two "people" on the tightrope and the last was to balance two "people" and an object between them.

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This morning in "Blueprint to You," students did an in-depth study of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). While students learned about the structure and function of DNA, they also dove into the deeply rich, yet controversial history of DNA's structural discovery.

Today in "How to Make a Podcast," students practiced editing podcasts and talked about interviewing. Students earned how to use the website twistedwave.com to edit and were tasked with creating a 1 minute mini-podcast to share with the class. For their final podcasts, students chose a class topic of food. Students will be working in small groups to create episodes related to this topic.

Best,

Nicole, Olivia and Abby