Week Sixteen - USAF Museum

This Week

This was a short week, but students had some very meaningful experiences today going to the USAF Museum and hearing from Holocaust survivor Ira Segalowitz share about his escape from Poland and into the USSR, where he lived with his mother for three years as WWII raged on. Thank you to him, the USAF Museum, and all of the parent chaperones who helped make this trip possible! Upon our return, students heard from a guest lecturer, Dr. Jason Deibel, who spoke to the students about lasers and many other cool physics topics. Thanks to his former student and current DRSS teacher, Ms. Camden, for arranging the visit. All in all, it was a great way to end a short week!

Here are some photos from the trip...

Students explore the USAF Museum Holocaust exhibit with survivor Ira Segalowitz

Students touring the Holocaust exhibit

Students explore the museum, checking out one of the early jet engines

Ms. Camden's group hanging out in the lobby before we leave

Dr. Daibel explaining how light moves

Also, the results everyone has been waiting for... the winning group for the scavenger hunt (by far, with 71 points!) was Mr. Federinko's group, Group 4! Congratulations to all the students who will be receiving extra credit:

• Starr
• Keshawn
• Matthew
• Cameron
• TJ
• Sterling
• Carl
• Mason
• Jacob
• Ray

Great work all!

Upcoming Week

When we return, students will be finishing up our unit on genocides and beginning our study of conflicts of the 20th century. We will focus special attention on the Conflict in Northern Ireland, Kashmir, and end with the Israeli Palestinian Conflict.

Have a great Thanksgiving break!

~Mr. Grieve

Week Fifteen - Cambodia and Bosnia

This Week

We are moving at a much more rapid pace now as we get through the remaining genocides. This week students studied the Cambodian Genocide and the Bosnian Genocide. Students also presented today on selected passages from the books they are reading in Language Arts and the sources we have studied in World History to try and draw parallels and dissimilarities between the ways in which the two sources talk about the conflict or genocide. Now would be a great time to talk to your son or daughter about what they are reading and ask them to explain the premise of the book and how the conflict they are studying unfolded in that part of the world. Also, today is the 19th anniversary of the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords (which students studied yesterday)! Check out what is being done to celebrate its 20th anniversary next year below:

Check out the full story from WYSO here

Upcoming Week

Next week is obviously a short one, and it is made even shorter by the fact that we are going on a field trip on Tuesday to the Air Force Museum. Thanks to the parents who have volunteered to join us, I really appreciate it!

This weekend I would encourage you to ask your son or daughter to think of some questions they would like to ask the Holocaust survivors. They should brainstorm and come prepared to ask questions when we meet with him or her. For more information on the exhibit they will be exploring, check out this link from the USAF Museum website.

When we return from break we will begin studying the Rwandan Genocide before moving on to our study of the Conflict in Northern Ireland and others. 

Have a great weekend!

~Mr. Grieve

Week Fourteen - Nuremberg Trials and more

This Week

We finished up with our study of the Holocaust and its aftermath today after reading about the Nuremberg trials Wednesday and then "trying" the leaders of the Holocaust in a mock trial yesterday and today. Students learned about the challenges the Allies faced in trying the Nazi war criminals as well as what crimes they were actually charged with. Students also began discussing the books they are reading in language arts and comparing them to what they have studied in history class.

Upcoming Week

Next week students will continue on in our study of 20th century genocides by looking at the Cambodian and Bosnian genocides. We will also be moving on from Western European countries for our Geo Quiz and beginning to study Middle Eastern countries. Students can start studying for that one this weekend by practicing the test here.

Short update this week, but lots going on!

Have a great weekend,

~Mr. Grieve

Week Thirteen - Understanding Jewish Life in Pre-War Europe

This Week

Students this week were working for the first three days on the Jewish Life Photo Project whereby they found photos of European Jews before the Holocaust began from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's website and researched that person's community. Students then compared them to their own lives by comparing photos of themselves with their friends and families, so I wanted to make available to the parents the spreadsheet where you can find your son's or daughter's Prezis to see what they did. You can find them here. The students presented many of them yesterday so that everyone would get a chance to see how the Holocaust affected different people in different communities. I will grade the rest of them this upcoming week.

One notable Prezi was Fatima's, who did a great job with this project. Check hers out by clicking on the link below the picture!

Check out Fatima's Prezi here!

Students also began studying the events surrounding Kristallnacht (learn more about it at this website from the USHMM.org), which we began studying more in depth in class today. Unfortunately, the first period class may need to spend a little more time on homework this weekend as our class work time was cut short by our first "Code Red" Drill evacuation. It went extremely well though and all students exited the school building very quickly to safe locations. Additional homework is a small price to pay for safety preparedness!

Upcoming Week

Next week students are off on Monday while teachers have a professional development day, so students get to sleep in one day! After that we will continue our study of the Holocaust for one more week before moving on to the Cambodian Genocide. Next week we will focus more on the Nuremberg trials as we continue our study of the evolution of the international community's response to genocide.

Also, we now have all of the chaperones we need for the trip. Special thanks to Mrs. Walton-Crichton, Mrs. Kelly, and Mr. and Mrs. Lucas for volunteering as parent chaperones! Again, this trip will take place on November 25th, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving break.

Have a great weekend!

~Mr. Grieve