We're Finished!!!

This YEAR

With tomorrow being reserved for walk-a-thon, today marks the unofficial end of the course, and the end of debates. It's been rewarding for me personally watching all of these students grow over this past year. Hopefully, they can now claim to be more geographically literate and more knowledgeable about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than they were a year ago. They can also say that they know more about conflicts and genocides than most people, not to mention what challenges are facing China as it grapples with issues like economic development and censorship. Another claim they can make is that they can successfully articulate and defend their position on any topic. Learning how to learn is something I hope they have taken away from this course, and I couldn't have asked for a better group of students to teach. Thank you for such a wonderful year!

Team 2 consulting with one another during the break between the cross examinations and rebuttal. Fatima's look of concern was unsubstantiated, they won!

Of course I have to thank all of the partners who helped Ms. Reid and I judge these debates this year. The list is impressive and includes the following individuals:

• Vonya Lewis - Professor, Sinclair Community College
• Dr. Noeleen McIlvenna - Associate Professor, Wright State University
• Dr. Brian Boyd - Associate Professor, Wright State University
• Bill Lautar - Member, Kettering City Council
• Tony Klepacz - Member, Kettering City Council
• Dr. Robert P. Dillaplain - President, Xenia School Board
• Jordan Adams - Engineer - AFRL
• Deb Smyth - School Psychologist, Dayton Regional STEM School
• Jordan Slone - Director of IT, Dayton Regional STEM School
• Robin Fisher - Superintendent/CAO, Dayton Regional STEM School
• Dr. Romena Holbert - Assistant Professor, Wright State University
• Dr. David Wirth - MTSI Defense Contractor
• Suzanne Sumner - Attorney, Taft, Stettinius & Hollister
• Dr. Charlotte Harris - CEHS Dean, Wright State University
• Julie Tollefson - Grad student, Wright State University (International and Comparative Politics Program)
• Emily Miller - Teacher, Franklin High School
• Jim McFarland - Assistant Principal, Franklin High School
• Dr. Scott Peterson - Assistant Professor, Wright State University
• Caleb Mitchener - Social Studies Teacher

The judges were very impressed and wanted me to share this with the students. Dr. Luehrmann in particular wanted me to share her comments: "I can't tell you how impressed I was with the students yesterday: they were prepared, professional, and very interesting!  It was a joy to be there as a judge; please do count me in again next year." This is very high praise and I couldn't be prouder of all of them.

If you have any questions about the final grades your son or daughter has received, please email me at arch.grieve@wright.edu.

 

Next Week

I hope you have a great STEMmersion course! If you want to keep up with the biking STEMmersion's trips (and maybe get a few ideas of places to ride around Dayton), you can follow us on http://stemonwheels.blogspot.com!

Have a great summer and I look forward to seeing you all next year for Economics! My class blog for that course is http://economicsaccordingtogrieve.blogspot.com!

~Mr. Grieve

Week Thirty Seven - The Final Countdown!

This Week

It's been a fun week for me seeing all of the students honing their debate skills and piecing together evidence from throughout the year as they prepare for our debates, which will take place next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We have been practicing all week, which has been a lot of fun. We were even lucky enough to have local attorneys Nick Subashi and Tabitha Justice (who is also a DRSS Board Member) come help students prepare for doing cross examinations. They taught them as if they were "new attorneys," explaining all of the preparation that goes into preparing for a cross examination. It was tremendously helpful and I learned a lot as well!

Practicing for the debates!

On Wednesday I was lucky enough to get to go to Sima with Ms. Chen and her students and stuff myself!

Attorneys Nick Subashi and Tabitha Justice (also a DRSS Board Member) came to Ms. Reid's class to help us prepare for our cross examinations on Wednesday! Thanks so much to both of them!

Practicing constructive speeches and cross examinations during class on Thursday.

I also did bike to work day with Ms. Poppaw, Ms. Schultz, and the Bollingers. Lots of fun!

Next Week

We have an impressive array of judges who will be deciding which team better proves that the 20th century was (or was not) a century of progress. This group will include college professors (and even a dean), school board members, local council members from the City of Kettering, and business partners. It should be a lot of fun!

Next week, of course, will be the end of our academic year (before STEMmersion starts), and I am looking forward to watching the students show off everything they've learned this year in front of our judges. As local attorney Nick Subashi explained to our students this weekend, he still practices a lot before he steps into a court room for a trial. I hope students take this lesson to heart and realize that it's true that "practice makes perfect," and that they spend at least some of their weekend practicing their delivery.

Have a great weekend!

~Mr. Grieve

Update on Chinese Comic Life Project

All of the comics that have been uploaded have been graded and entered into ProgressBook. If you would like to revise, you must follow these special directions (and shortened revision timeline due to the end of the quarter rapidly approaching):

1. View my grade/feedback on Pilot
2. Revise your comic accordingly (fixing everything, not just some of it) 
3. Upload your file back to Pilot
4. Print out a hard copy of your new comic life project 
5. Turn it into your class' turn-in tray no later than 3:30PM on Wednesday, May 13

Thank you,

~Mr. Grieve

Week Thirty Six - Debate Preparation

This Week

We are half way through our debate preparations today with students working on crafting their contentions, finding their evidence, and (for the groups who are really on top of things) tying all of their evidence together with a unifying theme. Students have been given mini-lessons this week on finding evidence, crafting contentions, developing themes, and coming up with reasoning to tie their arguments together. Today I spent the period meeting with students individually to look at their evidence and provide them feedback on how to improve it. They had to fill out a form by this morning at 8:00AM letting me know what their evidence/contentions would be for the debates so I could provide feedback.

Students' Chinese Comic Life projects were also due today, which I will try to finish grading over the weekend. What I've looked at so far looks pretty good!

This is Colleen Fulton's comic life project. She did a great job!

We also had a good time enjoying the beautiful weather this week (while continuing to prepare for the debates):

The weather was too nice to stay inside today, so we went outside!

Upcoming Week

Next week we will be doing the following as we prepare for our final debates:

Monday - I will meet w/students one on one, students will begin practicing constructive speeches w/in their own groups and critiquing one another/refining their arguments

Tuesday - Same as Monday

Wednesday - Class will do a run-through of the whole 1st half of the debates with another like group (progress presents to progress so no potential opponents get an unfair advantage!) and give each other feedback.

Thursday - The class will do run-throughs of the whole debate (cont.) with whole-class critique

Friday - Groups will work on revising based on class feedback after finishing up whole debate run-throughs and preparing for debates, which will start during 1st period on Monday!

I hope you have a restful weekend and come back ready to finish the year strong!

~Mr. Grieve

Week Thirty Five - Comic Life Project

This Week (and Last Week)

I apologize I didn't get an update posted last week, but I was in Washington DC with my JCOWA students for the annual Academic WorldQuest Competition, put on by the World Affairs Council of America. We had a lot of fun, and you can check out our picture album on our Dayton JCOWA Facebook page.

This is our team with the European Union Ambassador David O'Sullivan! We got to visit the embassy.

Throughout this short week (no school for students Friday!) students have been working on their Comic Life projects whereby they create a comic about an important person or event from Chinese history so that we can create a comic book for each class about Modern Chinese history. On Wednesday we had a visit from Dr. Luehrmann, an expert on China and the Director of the Wright State International and Comparative Politics program (the one I'm in). Students submitted questions to her via a Google Form and she was able to come in during advisory and answer those questions on everything from currency during the Maoist era to the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement to the contradictions of Modern China. Students really benefited from her expertise and we she can visit with us again!

Dr. Luehrmann presenting to students on questions they sent to her ahead of time.

Many students wanted to ask questions so badly that they went late to lunch! Wish there was more time in the day.

There was also some big news on the poster project this week, as United to End Genocide (the organization for which we raised money) wrote an article about the unit we do! I have also decided to make all of their posters available for purchase, so you can check out the posters on our website at www.daytonstemschool.org/conflictandgenocide and then use this Google Form to let me know what posters you would like us to purchase. The form must be filled out and money must be turned in by Friday, May 8th, at 3:15PM. If you have any trouble with the form or questions, please contact me. All net proceeds from the sale of the posters will be donated to United to End Genocide.

Check out the story here!

Use this form to order posters. Find the 2015 posters available for sale on our website here.

Upcoming Week

Next week we begin studying for our "End of Year Debates," whereby students will be taking everything they have learned over the course of the year and fashioning arguments about whether or not they believe the 20th Century was one of "Progress," in addition to defining what "Progress" means. They will be debating in front of a panel of judges on May 18th, 19th, and 20th.

This is also the last weekend you have to visit the Chinese Art Exhibit at the Dayton Art Institute (if you haven't already), so be sure to send me a picture of your visit this week or weekend if you want to take advantage of this opportunity!

Have a great long weekend this weekend and here's to a great Thursday!

~Mr. Grieve

Week Thirty Three - Modern China Continued

This Week

It was fun on Thursday hearing about all of the things students did while on their internships on Wednesday! I heard about making coasters with an etching tool, playing with some pretty impressive video games at the Air Force Research Lab, and even heard my new favorite student say how hard it was to be a teacher after she shadowed one yesterday! One student even shadowed my brother, a writer for Naked Lime, a subsidiary of Reynolds and Reynolds that produces The News Wheel. All in all I was jealous about all the opportunities students got to take advantage of yesterday!

In terms of actual classwork, this week was spent finishing up the movie, To Live, and beginning two of the three readings we still have on Modern China. Students were given class time to complete these readings on Thursday and will have time on Friday as well.

Of course I can't forget to mention that Eddie Love and Ray Hampton placed 2nd in the Max May Memorial Art Competition, and Eddie was on hand to receive the award this past weekend at the Beth Abraham Synagogue. It was a great event and the Holocaust survivors who spoke were very moving. Check out some of the pictures, below.

A cool piece of art from another school

Many of our students' posters were on display

Here is Eddie's and Ray's poster

Eddie receiving the award for he and Ray, delivered by Renate Frydman, granddaughter of the Max May Memorial Art Competition's namesake, Max May

Eddie with his family!

Upcoming Week

I'm still allowing students to visit the museum, and I have to say that one student and her mother have set the bar quite high for letting me know they visited the Dayton Art Institute's Chinese exhibit. While you don't have to go quite this far, the extra effort is definitely appreciated, and I hope you have a chance to check it out as well!

Nice job Sophia and Mrs. Lucas! This is awesome! If this doesn't make you want to visit, I don't know what will.

There are some more pictures to show of others who went to visit the museum too!

We will be continuing with our studies of Modern China next week as we look at the Tiananmen Square protests, the artist Ai Wei Wei, and the challenges of Taiwan. Students were given their homework today for the Plan E day, so they should not need to log into Pilot or Pilot Live next Monday.

Also, I'm excited to announce that I'll be gone (that's not why I'm excited) next Friday because my students placed 1st for the second year in a row in the annual Junior Council on World Affairs competition, so we'll be traveling to Washington DC next week!

Have a great weekend.

~ Mr. Grieve

Week Thirty Two - Modern China Continued

This Week

This has been a slow week of easing back into the groove of school as students on Monday and Tuesday worked independently on a reading about Modern China. We then began our viewing of the movie, To Live, the final three days of the week.

Speaking of Modern China, thanks to all of you who took up my challenge to visit the art museum! I heard from many parents that they were unable to make it, so I'll extend this opportunity out another two weeks in case anyone else would like to visit it. I'm posting some of the better pictures below of students who went.

Thanks as well to those of you who came to the discussion panel about the US Senate torture review panel's findings at Wright State. It was an interesting and enlightening discussion and I'm glad you could make it.

Upcoming Week

Next week we will continue with our studies of Modern China as we finish up the movie and then move onto looking at more modern events, such as the Tiananmen Square protests and Ai Wei Wei's political dissidence. Today I also told students that we are going to (hopefully) have the opportunity to do a Q & A with the Director of the International and Comparative Politics Graduate program at Wright State, Dr. Luehrmann, and I'm asking them to think of things they want to ask her and post them on sticky notes as we go through the unit. With her being a true Modern China expert, I'm really excited for her visit. To get some ideas about things you'd like to research, check out NPR's page on China.

Have a great weekend,

~Mr. Grieve

Week Thirty One - Modern China

This Week

We began our studies of Modern China this week by looking at a brief overview of Dynastic China and Chinese geography. If you're looking for a way to deepen your understanding of Chinese history, I'd definitely recommend checking out the Dayton Art Institute, which has a nice collection of Chinese art and artifacts that are very cool. Below are a few that we took last year when we rode our bikes there for our STEM On Wheels course.

A bit about the exhibit

A Watchtower from the Han Dynasty

More about the Watchtower

Figurines from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1544)

Also this week, a big shout out to Joel Baker, whose logo design for the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords was selected by Culture Works of Dayton as the winner of their logo contest! Look out for his logo next November as the anniversary events are advertised. The event is likely to bring dignitaries from around the world to Dayton, all of whom will be reading programs with Joel's logo. Great job, Joel!

We had two more students receive good news as well - Edward Love and Ray Hampton, whose poster Was it Really "Never Again"? won 2nd place in the Max May Memorial Art competition this year! Congratulations to both of them as well!

The 2nd Place Poster for the 2015 Max May Memorial Art Competition - Edward Love and Ray Hampton

Upcoming Week

Obviously next week is spring break! When we get back from that, though, we'll continue with our studies of Modern China by watching the movie, To Live, which is a Chinese movie by the famous Chinese director Zhang Yimou. I use this film to teach the different stages of Modern China up through the Cultural Revolution, as it's a good look at China from a Chinese perspective. It's also important to remember that much of it is simultaneously propaganda, so understanding the difference between how events are depicted and what actually happened is also a good way for us to become familiar with the progress and challenges Modern China has faced since adopting Communism.

I hope you and your family have a great spring break and that you make it out to the Dayton Art Institute at some point this break! If a student goes to the museum and brings back a ticket stub (or, better yet, gets a picture of him or herself with one of the artifacts in the Chinese Art exhibit!) I will give them extra credit, so there's a good reason for a family trip to the museum!

~Mr. Grieve

Week Thirty - Posters Unveiled!

This Week

The week isn't quite over, although the highlight of the week has mostly passed us, which was the poster unveiling at the Wright State Educational Resource Center. It was great seeing so many of you there and seeing all of the student artwork hanging prominently at Wright State University. Please go and 'like' their Facebook page and check out the picture album that Stephanie Bange, the Director of the ERC, has posted. There are many more great pictures of students and parents on there. Thank you so much to her and the ERC for hosting us and our artwork!

The posters will be on display until April 15th if you weren't able to make it out Wednesday. Some of the posters are also being entered into the Max May Memorial Art Contest, so look for those soon!

It was a truly fun evening seeing all the artwork on display, you all did a great job!

Thank you to all the students who showed up!

And the parents!

Thanks to DRSS Board Member Jennifer Winner for showing up and purchasing some of the posters to donate back to the school so they can be on display in our rooms!

And thanks to everyone who wants to shave my beard! We received over $100 last night and had commitments for at least another $100 through auction sales!

Students decided today to donate the proceeds to the non-profit organization United to End Genocide, which helps raise awareness of current ongoing conflicts and genocides going on around the world today. Find out more about how their money is spent HERE. If you missed a chance to donate but still want to see me with a new (or no) facial hair style, you can send in cash (or a check) made payable to either the Dayton Regional STEM School or directly to United to End Genocide. We have until Friday to get to $1,000 and students of all grade levels can donate!

Socratic Seminars have now been entered and all grades are now in ProgressBook depending on which quarter students elected to have their seminars and ticket assignments show up. If you have any questions or the grade book looks inaccurate, please feel free to email me to clear up any confusion at arch.grieve@wright.edu.

Upcoming Week

Testing continues throughout the week, and the most important one, of course, is next Monday. Don't forget to study this weekend using the following Ohio Department of Education test preparation website. Additionally, students can find out the topics for the Social Studies test HERE.

Have a great rest of the week and a great weekend!

~Mr. Grieve

Special Announcement - Poster Unveiling TOMORROW!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Testing is under way and Socratic Seminars are nearly finished. As an update on an item from last week, I am allowing students to select which quarter their seminar grades and ticket assignments will count towards.

Just a reminder for all of you who can make it out, we will have the poster unveiling at the Charles and Renate Frydman Educational Resource Center at Wright State University from 5-6PM tomorrow evening, March 18th (Wednesday). There is a Facebook Event that the ERC created where you can find the details and information about their location on Wright State's campus. Here is their webpage. I'd encourage you to get there early to be sure you have time to park. Guest parking information can be found here. You can park there or get a pass to park in another lot, but please leave enough time to get there.

There will be snacks and you'll have a chance to meet the artists! I am also offering extra credit (on 3rd or 4th quarter) for students who show up.

Please remember their artwork will be available for purchase after the display is taken down (April 15th), so if you'd like to purchase theirs or others' posters, the suggested donation amount is $10, but we will gladly take more! If students raise $1,000 or more, I will let them shave my beard (or dye it) as I promised. The silent auction will end at 5:50.

We hope you can make it out, and we will also take donations that evening. Checks should be made payable to the Dayton Regional STEM School and write "Donation for Genocide Posters" in the memo line.

Have a great week,

~Mr. Grieve

Week Twenty-Nine

This Week

It's been a good week this week as we have finished up our studies of Globalization and started our Socratic Seminars. As a class, we looked at NAFTA (which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year), discussed the concept of "Glocalization" (yes, with a 'c') by watching McDonald's commercials, and looked at how emerging epidemics like Ebola intersect with Globalization in the real world. Finally, on Friday, we began our Socratic Seminars. Students are doing a great job so far and their discussions have been thoughtful, well-informed, and very reasoned.

Students in our first Socratic Seminar of 2015

Upcoming Week

These seminars will continue into next week during OGTs (taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday). I am polling students to see whether they think it fair to include these Seminar grades on their 3rd quarter grade (since some of them are taking place during 4th quarter). On the one hand, all of the preparation took place during 3rd and putting them on 3rd quarter will give students a better idea of where they stand. On the other, the fact remains that some will take place during 4th quarter. Whatever is decided, fairness to the students will be the deciding factor. If you have any issues with the decision made after talking with students today, please feel free to reach out to me to discuss.

Of course next week is OGT week. Students are encouraged to practice this weekend for the OGTs using the following test preparation website. Additionally, students can find out the topics for the Social Studies test HERE. While students have not yet had all of the classes covered by the OGTs, I am confident that the students will do well on this test. As a benchmark, in previous years, 93% is the lowest passing rate DRSS has had for students taking the social studies OGT test.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me at arch.grieve@wright.edu.

Oh, and Happy St. Patrick's Day next week! In celebration, please enjoy this beautiful picture of the "Three Sisters" on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry from 2010 when my wife and I visited the country.

I just love the picture...

Have a great weekend,

~Mr. Grieve

Week Twenty-Eight

This Week

It's been a rare week of being in school all week, even though some schools closed yesterday! This week we focused on continuing our study of Globalization. Students were given a combination of readings and videos (even some cartoons) and took part in group discussions as we continued to grapple with our essential questions. I've been tracking the assignments on a Google Doc, which you can find here.

Today students also are taking their first geography quiz (first one in a while) over Asia. Hopefully they haven't lost this skill set!

Today is also National Bring Your Action Figure to Work Day.

I brought Batman...

 

 Upcoming Week

It's hard to believe that 3rd quarter ends next Friday. Students will be finishing up our Globalization unit and wrapping up the quarter, which means the following:

• Students must be sure they check to see that their posters have been received (they've been given detailed instructions on how to do this)
• Ms. Reid and I will grade posters next week and this will be added as a project grade in ProgressBook
• Once I receive grades from Ms. Reid I will input her grades into ProgressBook for the students' letters and we will mail them to their Members of Congress
• Students should study for the OGTs by taking the practice tests, found here
• Students must revise their portfolio reflections for World History by next Wednesday at 3:15 in order to revise their portfolios and receive a grade for that in my class - the directions were written on my board Thursday and I took a picture of them: 

How to revise portfolio reflections

I think that about wraps it up! Have a great weekend, and please remember that your students' work will be unveiled and displayed at the Wright State Educational Resource Center on Wednesday, March 18, from 5-6PM. Hope you can make it out!

~Mr. Grieve

Week Twenty-Seven

This Week

This has been a chaotic week thanks to weather and PARCC testing, which made it impossible for us to get online during the end of the week. The good news, hopefully, is that we're back on!

Students, don't forget that your portfolio reflections are still due tonight (no later than midnight)! You were given plenty of class time and Plan E time last week and this week (before Internet went out) to complete this. Again, please use my portfolio as a template for yours. It can be found here. This must be submitted to this spreadsheet (click right here) no later than midnight tonight, and if you have not checked the link to be sure it works (i.e. takes me directly to your world history portfolio reflection page), it will be counted late, a point I've made repeatedly in class. I am concerned because as of 1:53PM, only 54 students out of 90 have done this.

In terms of content, though, this week we finished up our Conflict and Genocide unit (almost - still need to mail out our letters) and began our unit on Globalization. This unit is one I've done every year, but this year is different in that our focus will be not just on globalization, but on how globalization impacts and is impacted by emerging epidemics.

The students are attempting to answer four essential questions throughout the unit: What is the nature of globalization? Does it have a net positive or negative impact? What factors have led to increased globalization? and What can we do to reduce the negative externalities caused by globalization? They will discuss these questions during the seminars in a few weeks.

To begin looking at globalization, we looked at a short documentary by NPR that traces the journey of a t-shirt from Cotton fields in Mississippi to the backs of NPR listeners, which was really interesting. You can watch the short documentary at home using this link, and students were encouraged to revisit it later to use facts/details as notes for their Socratic Seminars and, later in the year, for their debates.

As an illustration of how globalization works, students did an activity mapping out where their clothes and personal devices and belongings are made... this is mine (the beard refers to beard oil I use, which is made in the USA)

Upcoming Week

Next week we will continue our study of globalization. Students are reminded to keep track of their assignments throughout this unit, as this is the only unit in which assignments are not collected after students complete them, but at the end of the unit. The assessment comes in their demonstration of understanding of the material during the Socratic Seminars. Students can keep track of the assignments using the assignment tracker for this unit, which I'll do my best to keep updated as we go along. So far they've only had one assignment, the Comparative Advantage activity worksheet.

Have a great weekend!

~Mr. Grieve

Week Twenty-Six!

This Week

Calling this a "week" is being a bit generous. Students came in for a total of two days between President's day and our first ever true snow day here at DRSS! It's been a brutal winter so far. Hopefully everyone stays warm and has a nice snow day today.

Not much to report except that students continued working on their posters with the little amount of time we had this week. On Thursday's Plan E I asked them to start working on their portfolio reflections. Friday we were going to have a guest speaker, but she will (hopefully) be coming back in the next few weeks at some point to talk to students about our next unit - globalization (and diseases). Below are a few images of students at various stages of the poster-making process.

George works on inking his poster

Students working on gauching... a new part of the project this year that I've never done before. Posters should look even better than in the past!

Angie and Jake inking their images

Alyssa working hard on carving her linoleum block... looking forward to see this poster when it's inked!

Upcoming Week

Assuming next week's weather is better, we'll finish up our posters on Monday and then move on to beginning our unit on Globalization, which is our integrated unit this year. We're integrating it with emerging epidemics, so towards the end of this unit we'll explore how increased globalization has played a role in the spread of diseases like Ebola. It should be timely and interesting! Our geography quizzes will finally make a comeback next week two as we begin looking at countries in Asia. If you want to get a head start, you can practice here.

Lastly, if students really want to do something educational on this snow day (which I doubt, but there may be a few of them), check out this link from ODE where you will be able to create an account in order to practice for all OGT tests using previous test questions.

Have a great weekend, and see you next Monday!

~Mr. Grieve

Week Twenty Five - JCOWA/Posters/Chinese

This Week

This has been a really exciting (albeit FAST) week! On Monday I took many of our 10th graders to the University of Dayton where students competed in the annual Quiz Bowl competition. Long story short - we won first place for the second year in a row! On top of our successes, we also had a great time.

Mr. Lydy, Tyler, Vidur, Tess, and David will be representing Dayton in DC this year! Check out the JCOWA FB page here.

Some of our newest JCOWA members at their first Quiz Bowl. Check out more pictures on our FB page.

That was just on Monday though. We also worked on posters all week (and will be working into the next one as well). Below are some highlights from the poster process.

Linoleum block carving - safety first!

Inking the posters

As if working on posters wasn't enough, we also had a really fun field trip to Wright State for the Chinese Immersion day. I love chaperoning on this trip each year, it's always a lot of fun!

See? Told you so.

The DEP 2 students performed for other area schools as well, nice work everyone!

We had a big group this year! Find more pictures on our FB page.

Upcoming Week

Next week we will be finishing up posters and starting on our next unit: Globalization. On Friday we will have a special guest speaker come and talk to the students about how Globalization and Emerging Epidemics (which is both a topic that students are studying in their other classes and the title of a book they'll be reading in Language Arts) interact and shape the world in which we live. This is a particularly timely topic with everything that's gone on in the news in recent months about Ebola. In this unit students will explore what globalization is (both from an economic, societal, and cultural standpoint) and how it has happened, debate whether it's good or bad, and try to grapple with what can be done to reduce the negative externalities caused by globaliztion. It should be an enlightening unit for all of us, especially since this is the first time I've taught this as part of an integrated unit on diseases!

Lastly, we've confirmed a date/location/time for our poster exhibition! Students will be unveiling their posters at Wright State University's Educational Resource Center on March 18th at 5PM. They will be auctioning off work to raise money for international aid organizations in order to help those living through conflict zones around the world today. Please put this event on your calendars now!

Have a great weekend.

~Mr. Grieve