Week Nine - End of the Quarter!

This Week

We began this week with a mini-unit on a society that changed a lot in the 20th Century by looking at Berlin and briefly reviewing the Cold War, which students learned about last year in US History. Students watched a video that talked about the Berlin Wall both from a historic standpoint and an engineering one, which you can view here. Students also spent time reflecting on their work and their growth as learners this first quarter in order to prepare for their portfolios throughout the year. You can read more about the changes to portfolios this year by checking out the student responsibilities portion of the DRSS Portfolio Handbook, or by watching the video below. I would encourage your son or daughter to work on this throughout the year so they don't fall behind or feel pinched for time at the end of the year. You can also watch the following video on new portfolio requirements if they get confused about what they need to do to showcase their learning.

Finally, we kicked off our unit on transportation on Thursday, which is the final part of our Societies in Transition unit. Students traced the journey of Wilbur Wright through the following primary source document of his September 13, 1900 diary entry. In it he describes his journey to Kitty Hawk, NC, to test out their glider. Students then researched how to travel the same route today and compared the ease of travel 114 years later with the much longer journey that he took.

Grades should be completed and at this point will not be changing for 1st quarter. You can check your son's or daughter's grades on ProgressBook. The class average was high this quarter and students appear to have taken my advice not to have missing assignments, as there have been relatively few this year. Consequently, the class average was high at 90.6%. Great work!

Upcoming Week

 

Next week students will be continuing their look at transportation and inventions/innovations of the 20th century and working on creative projects that demonstrate the importance of a particular engineering achievement of the 20th century.

Have a great long weekend!

~Mr. Grieve