SVGS Classes in Action

September 5, 2018

AP ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

APES students hiked in St. Mary’s Wilderness area this week examining the characteristics of types of forest, wilderness ecosystem, and the effects of mining and forest fires. Students collected data on stream pH, nitrates, phosphates, water and air temperature.

HUMANITIES I

Humanities I students participate in education theory review by collaborating on tabletop summaries of theorists— this activity functions as their rough draft of the theory sheets they create that demonstrate students’ abilities to recall, process, and apply educational theory.

ACTING II

Senior theater students work on scene studies using “guideposts” for moment before, humor, and opposites. Michael Shurtleff developed what he calls “The Twelve Guideposts” to help an actor create a dynamic, motivated character quickly.

AP CALCULUS

Students are working on various rules for finding the derivatives of functions.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH – LIFE SCIENCE

Students are working on a lab quantifying protein concentrations using their understanding of protein chemist and a simple test for protein quantification. They used the basics of spectrophotometry and developed skills in using a spectrophotometer and in preparing dilutions for analysis and calculating original concentrations. To analyze their results, students constructed and used a standard curve and spreadsheet software to organize, display, and analyze data.

ENGINEERING I

Students are beginning to explore reverse engineering in preparation for defining their own reverse engineering projects.

AP CHEMISTRY

Students designed a procedure to find the concentration of Ca2+ ions in a water sample.

STATISTICS

Students worked on exploring data with descriptive statistics and visualization. Students created an R Notebook and demonstrated knowledge in constructing data visualizations, creating contingency tables, and calculating descriptive statistics. R is a software environment for statistical computing. They explained what the data visualizations, contingency tables, and descriptive statistics indicate about their dataset. Students made the decisions of which tools were appropriate and in what circumstances. They generated their own questions about the dataset and answered those questions.

HUMANITIES WORKSHOP

Students participated in a philosophy workshop with a guest lecturer, retired and former SVGS math teacher, Ralph Irons.

ENGINEERING II

Students built drones and are working to calibrate flight parameters and document their design and construction process.

GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Students worked on tutorials and a mapping problem identifying evacuation zones, helicopter landing zones, location for medical support, and vulnerable areas following a hazardous waste spill.