CSS helping Pakistan

How CSS helped Pakistan

During the week of September 9^th to 17^th, 6.1 held a bottle drive to help the people in Pakistan. Students from the school brought some bottles, can and milk jugs each day and 6.1 picked them up from the each room and counted how many bottle each class collected. 4.3 brought in the most bottles so now they receive an ice cream party! They brought in over 1700 bottles!

Here are some facts about the flood in Pakistan:

· More than 3.5 million children are at risk contracting a deadly water borne disease.

· 20% of Pakistan has been flooded

· More than 1500 people have died in the flooding

· Millions of people have been displaced

We raised $1400.00 and are donating that money to the Canadian Red Cross. The Government is matching the funds that are being donated. A total of $2800.00 is going to Pakistan.

We would like to thank all of the people who brought in cash donations and bottles for Pakistan. Way to go CSS!

By Inaara K.

Google Sketch-Up Expertise Needed!

We are looking for someone who can help us with the design of a grade 8 project using Google Sketch-Up!

The Task:
Our grade 8 students have just begun their Renaissance unit. Similar to last year students will be working through an examination of: (1) the conditions that allowed the Italian Renaissance to flourish, and (2) whether Calgary has those same conditions. While the project is starting in a similar manner to last year, this year the teachers are taking it a step further.

After completing the Renaissance unit last year, the grade 8 teachers created a survey asking the students for feedback on the project. Students reported they gathered a deep understanding of both the Italian Renaissance and new insights into their hometown. However, students also reported that they did not have an opportunity to act on or live out the understanding they had gained. They wanted an opportunity to apply the Renaissance conditions in some way.

With that in mind, the teachers this year are introducing a new component of the project.

Calgary has a small Island Park just outside of downtown (St. Patrick’s Island) that is currently being redesigned. The city has asked for design ideas and public input into how this space might be developed. Each of our four grade 8 classes are going to submit a design for this island, and their designs will attempt to embody the principles of the Renaissance into the development of the island.

The Need:
We are planning on using Google Sketch-Up for students to create a model of their redesigned island. We are hoping to find a way that each of our four grade 8 classes can create one collaborative Google Sketch-Up model. One possible solution is to have students create their building designs as individual components which would then be compiled digitally at the end of the project.

We are wondering whether there is a way to structure a collaborative Google Sketch-Up document or even how to build a collaborative Google Earth file adding building designs from a variety of students.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

Gingerbread House Building Contest

Gingerbread House Building Contest - Grade 8/9 Leadership

In December, the Grade 8 and 9 Leadership class held a Gingerbread House building contest for charity. After the contest was finished, we donated the houses to various organizations including the Mustard Seed, Avenue 15 - a homeless shelter for youth, the YWCA Sheriff King Home, and Woods Homes. Teachers were asked to work with their classes to choose 5 participants to represent each class. The houses were judged based upon their aesthetic appearance and overall build quality. The design and appearance varied, some were simple and minimalistic while other were very ornate with many decorations brought in from the participants. In the end, there were many good entries, so we decided to choose a winner from each grade. Each of the participants was awarded 5 House/Colour points while the winning teams from each grade were awarded an additional 5 points. The contest turned out very well in the end and the Gingerbread Houses were very much appreciated by all of the recipients.

The Grade 8/9 Leadership students who organized this event would like to give a big THANK YOU to Ken Wlad of Sobeys who donated all of the Gingerbread kits. Without him, all of this would not be possible.

Winners by grade (10 House/Colour Points each):

4.3 - Colin T., Sofia D., Erica R., Ethan G., Anna V.

5.4 - Kate L., Amanda C., Stephanie C., Jon B., Justin B.

6.3 - Jada B., Kristin M. Maggie C., Will S., Cole D.

7.3 - Harley D., Sarah P., Colby L., Connor S., Noah V.

8.3 - Jada A., Shaina F., Tyler W., Nick B., Jaime C.

9.3 - Jags B., Kelly H., Kayla R., Sabrina V., Calder K.

Written by Khoi N., Edward K., Cam B. (Gr. 8)

Exploring Immigration: A Student Perspective

Over the last number of years, our grade 9 students have participated in a project called Canada: Your Story is My Story.

This project involves students interviewing recent immigrants to Canada with the purpose of better understanding the immigration experience. After meeting and interviewing new Canadians, the students create multi-media narratives of the immigration stories - creating a documentary of each immigrant's journey to this country.

Here's a perspective from two of our grade 9 students who recently finished the project:

"Over the past three weeks, Grade 9 students had the pleasure of meeting immigrant students from the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society. Of all ages and backgrounds, the CCIS students sat down with our Grade 9s to discuss their journey that has led them to Canada. The purpose of the assignment was to understand the immigrant journey and the struggle and sacrifices they encountered to come to Canada. Through three different sessions, we questioned and listened to the stories the CCIS students shared, intrigued about the sacrifices they had to make to come live in a new country.

A strong bond began to form between the immigrants and us because we found that most of our interests (e.g. soccer, listening to music) were also values to our new found friends. My group and I were privileged to meet Mr. Moon from South Korea. He came to Canada to reunite with his family since they had decided that Canada was the place they wanted to live. His youngest son was the first to request to come to Canada in order to seek a better education. Among many other things Mr. Moom spoke a lot about Kimchi, which was a traditional meal in South Korea.

We decided to create an analogy of Mr. Moon's immigration through the Kimchi which symbolized his cultural roots. The lettuce is the outer-shell of the kimchi which shelters all the other ingredients in a safe bubble. The lettuce would be like Mr. Moon's outer image that he prepared before coming to Canada. This worked similar to the lettuce because it kept all his emotions of traveling and leaving his home country enclosed and not shown to the public. The salt gives the kimchi stronger taste and bitterness. The salt relates to Mr. Moon's small, but existing bitterness of leaving his home country. The red pepper flakes are spicy which increases the flavor. The red pepper flakes in Mr Moon's immigration journey would be the excitement of going to a new country, the uncertainty of how “spicy” the trip will be. The green onions and ginger bring the happiness and feeling of success when your life in the new county begins to turn. Everything begins to go your way and the minced garlic is the awkward taste that leaves you healthier than before. Its the sacrifice that is really a blessing in disguise.

We all learned a tremendous amount from the stories the students shared with us and are thankful for having met such brave and determined people."

You can read more about the project, including examples of student work, by clicking here.

Leading and Learning 2010 Resources

One of our staff, Neil Stephenson, is presenting two sessions at the CARC "Leading and Learning" conference.

He's presenting two sessions:

(1) Engaging Teaching and Learning at the Calgary Science School and

(2) Leading Teacher Change in a Technology Rich School.

Here's the materials being used in the two sessions:

Link to the Galileo Inquiry rubric linked to illustrative examples from the Calgary Science School.

Link to Teacher Collaboration at the Calgary Science School

Link to the "Examining Student Work" Framework, with samples and presentation.

Sharon Friesen discussing the Calgary Science School:

Digital Portfolios at CSS - Year One:

Building Homes in South Africa

This year one of our Grade 6 Humanities Teachers, Chris Dittmann, is volunteering for a organization, Hands at Work, that works with HIV orphaned children in Africa.

Chris has dreamed up a project that he's hoping the Calgary Science School community will help support.

A letter from Chris:

Greetings to all of you at CSS from hot and sunny South Africa. For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Mr. Dittmann and I am usually a Humanities teacher at CSS. I say “usually” because this school year I have taken a leave of absence from my teaching position at CSS in order to serve as a volunteer with an organization called Hands at Work in Africa. I am currently living near a town called White River in the province of Mpumulanga, which is in northeast South Africa, close to the border with Mozambique.

Hands at Work is a non-governmental (charity) organization that assists communities in eight countries in Africa that have the highest numbers of orphans and vulnerable children and have little or no access to things like hospitals, clinics, and schools. Hands at Work doesn’t deliver any of the services, like food, education, or health care. Rather, people in the community itself get organized to do this and Hands at Work tries to support them and help them to do even more things to help the kids in their community.

Most of my days here are spent helping local Hands at Work volunteers. I try to do whatever I can, like teaching computer skills (not many Macbooks here!), writing proposals and reports about projects that the communities are doing and also writing stories about some of the kids who are getting help in the community. Not many people in the communities own cars or drive so I also spend part of each day driving volunteers around. I enjoy it, although people drive on the opposite side of the road here in comparison to North America, which was a little confusing at first!

Many of the kids in the communities I’m working in face huge challenges in their lives. Many children have lost their parents due to HIV/AIDS. Some of these kids are taken in by relatives, who already have difficulty providing for their families. Other kids end up living on their own. We call these “child headed households”, where the oldest kid becomes the caregiver and head of the family. Some of them are barely teenagers. It’s very difficult for these kids to provide food for themselves. Some are forced to quit school and try to earn money. Safety and security are big issues for these kids living alone.

Even though I’m not at CSS this year, I have had lots of contact with my fellow teachers back home. In fact, we have been busy coming up with some ideas of how you at CSS can connect with what is happening here in Africa. Through technology, we’re looking at ways that CSS teachers and students will be able to see what life is like for some of the kids here and get to know their stories.

There are two households in particular that I’ve been working closely with – and that I’m hoping CSS will support over the next few weeks. These young people are currently living in very unsafe conditions – and it’s my hope to build two secure house for them – at a total cost of $7000.

I am still working out the details of how to collect funds for these families – but I’ll communicate that shortly. The great thing about being here is that I’ll be the project coordinator for buildings – and students at CSS will be able to skype with the families in January as the homes are being built.

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Sincerely,

Chris Dittmann

Chris made a short video about this project:

Chris has also created this document that adds additional information about two of the orphan boys (Mthandazo and Sipho) he has been closely working with:

More Math Podcasting

In a recent post we shared an example of podcasting as a powerful tool for students to demonstrate their mathematic thinking.

Here's another example of students recording their mathematical thinking, this time by a grade 4 student.

We believe that this is one of the most powerful uses of a 1:1 laptop program - how technology can empower students to demonstrate their understanding in multiple ways.

This video was made by a grade 4 student using this National Library of Virtual Manipulatives website - and then using the SMARTrecorder tool (comes with the SMART notebook software).

As with all our projects - we welcome feedback, comments, and suggestions in the comment box below.

Google Earth for Mapping Math

Our grade 5's have just finished using Google Earth to solve a math problem designed to build large number sense.

The students were challenged to find a route across Canada, starting in Calgary, that would take them to each of the capital cities. The trip could go in any order after leaving Calgary, but the students needed to complete their trip using at least 20,000 km and not going over 25,000 km.

In order to complete the trip, the students first needed to know the names and locations of all 14 capital cities, including territories and the capital of Canada, and how to add digits with decimals. Interestingly, many student used print altases to gain remind themselves of the names and locations of the cities. (It was also a great review of the capital cities of Canada - also part of the grade 5 curriculum!)

A Google Earth demonstration was given before the challenge. The class was shown how to fly between locations using addresses as well as the names of locations.

Other tools that shown included: how to measure between two locations using the “line” and “path” function, how to move within the screen, how to zoom in and out of locations and how to mark locations that they had visited.

The class first explored these tools by locating their homes, the Calgary Science School and the Calgary International Airport. Once all the locations had been found, they were asked to find the distance between their home and the school, the school and the airport and the distance around the school yard.

Armed with these basic measurement skills in Google Earth, the students were let loose to solve the problem:

Here's one of the student's final calculations (you can see the three attempts made):

As with all our projects - we welcome feedback, comments, and suggestions in the comment box below.

Reimagining the Future of Education in the 21st century

At the end of last school year, the Grade 8 Humanities team (Rachelle Savoie and David Scott) and their students embarked on a project examining the question:

If schools got it right for adolescent learners, what would they look like?

To prepare students to respond to this question, we looked at various resources that provided context around traditional approaches to education and the history of schools in North America.

1:1 Research Report - Year Three

Here at the Calgary Science School we are currently in our 5th year of 1:1 computing.

As part of our 1:1 program, the University of Calgary, along with the Galileo Educational Network have been researching our 1:1 program.

Below you'll find the full research report from year three of our program:

Citation for 1:1 Report:
Jacobsen, M., Friesen, S. & Saar, C. (2010). Teaching and learning in a one‐to‐one mobile computing environment: A research report on the personalized learning initiative At Calgary Science School. Report delivered to the Board of the Calgary Science School, March 2010.

Resources for MT Year-One Lecture

This week, three of our teachers are giving the two morning lectures to 350 first year education students at the University of Calgary.

We are sharing the vision we have for inquiry-based learning at the Calgary Science School, and using some of our classroom projects as a way to illustrate how strong inquiry-based work is carefully and thoughtfully designed.

The two slide shows given are:

Illustrative Examples of Inquiry-Based Learning

Here at the Calgary Science School we build our understanding of inquiry-based learning around the Inquiry Rubric developed in conjunction with the Galileo Educational Network.

To help unpack how the Galileo Inquiry Rubric is lived out in specific projects from our school, we've compiled the following list of projects tied to particular elements of the Inquiry Rubric:

Authenticity

• Boreal Forst Study
• Sustainable Communities
• Google Earth for Mapping Math

Academic Rigour

• Worldview Survey
• Water Quality Testing
• Creating Virtual Rube Goldberg Machines

Active Exploration

• Renaissance Project
• Grade 5 Historical Fiction

Compassion

• Canada Your Story is My Story
• Endangered Species

Assessment for Learning

• CSS Portfolios
• Capturing Student Voice
• Math Podcasts
• Google Docs as Assessment
• More Math Podcasting

Connecting with Experts

• Cross Border Skyping
• Student Teacher Skyping
• Skyping with Museum Curator

Elaborated Communication

• Grade 8 Worldview Remix
• Grade 7 Historical Perspective Remix
• Creating Effective Presentations
• Glogster for Historical Timelines

If you're familiar with the rubric, you'll notice that Appropriate Use of Technology is absent from the list. This is because technology integration is embedded in each of these illustrative examples.

Assessment Discussions at CSS

Assessment has been a hot topic at the Calgary Science School over the last year. (AISI Cycle 4)

Our AISI funding has allowed teachers to meet periodically in 2009-2010 to review the assessment strategies of the school as they pertain to our AISI assessment goals, and to review some of the pillars of the school's assessment philosophy.

The following video is a compilation of numerous assessment-related discussions that occurred during PD days during the the 2009-2010 school year.

In the video you'll see teachers discuss the following three key areas over the course of three professional development days offered over a six-month period:

1) What do report cards tell parents, and how do we consider reporting information to parents?
2) How do we collect data in an effective way that best represents the understanding of students?
3) How do rubrics and exemplars help teachers and students communicate the language of assessment in a classroom context?

As you watch you'll see teachers debate some of their own understanding of assessment in light of some of the assessment data, report card exemplars, grade books, student rubrics and exemplars shared in these PD days. By the end of this professional development time together there seems to be a shared sense of what quality assessment looks like at our school.

"It's not about school anymore"

Last week two of our grade 9 students were interviewed on CBC radio about all the municipal election projects they've been working on.

In particular, CBC radio was very interested in the efforts our grade 9 students have made to convince young voters to go to the polls. To accomplish this, we sent half our of grade 9 students (100 in total) to each of the two universities here in Calgary.

Armed with campaign materials and a boat load of political enthusiasm, our grade 9s spent two hours one afternoon walking around convincing university students to vote.

Here's the highlights from the interview with the two grade 9 students conducted a couple days before the event: (3 mins)

Wanted: US Students for Political Collaboration

The grade 9 teachers and students at the Calgary Science School are seeking an online partnership with a school in the United States for a multi-week study on political systems.

We are hoping to find a group of teachers and students who are willing and able to engage in an inquiry-based, comparative study of the political and economic systems of our two countries. This project will be issue based (immigration, healthcare, etc) and involve students working with partners across the border to examine how the two political systems respond to these issues.

PE Networking: Follow Up

Last Friday we hosted a networking day for PE teachers from local charter and private schools.

We had 12 teachers join us for a day of sharing lesson ideas, assessment techniques, and ways to integrate technology into the teaching of the Physical Activity and Health curriculums. The day was a mix of stand and deliver, Q and A and hands-on sharing of activities.

Boreal Forest: Are we doing enough?

Our grade 6 teachers are in the planning stages for a unit on the Boreal Forest. The guiding question for the study is currently:

How is the Boreal Forest related to the health of the planet?

Students will work through two sections of the study:

1. A mathematical exploration of large numbers, connected to the amount of oxygen needed by humans, and the amount of oxygen produced by trees.

2. A research-based examination of the current situation in Canada's Boreal Forest, approached through various animal species in the region.

You can access the planning documents by clicking here.

How to use LiveStream for Multi-Cam Broadcasting

We're really excited about our upcoming Mayoral Forum.

The event will be an open webcast allowing anyone with an internet connection to watch - though in particular we're targeting it to Calgary classrooms.

In particular, one of things that's got a group of our grade 9 boys really interested is being the technology crew for the event. We are experimenting with LiveStream as the way to broadcast the event.

We've discovered it is a powerful tool because it allows for multi-camera broadcasting. Livestream lets you log onto one account from multiple sources and then mix the camera feed in real time. We'll be broadcasting our event here.

Our plan is to hook 4 video cameras up to 4 student laptops. We will have 1 student running each one of these camera on tripods. The feeds from these from these camera are then controlled by one main studio computer - which will be controlled by another grade 9 student. This student will be responsible for mixing the live feed that is broadcast our across the web.

As our tech crew was playing around with Livestream this morning, they have discovered how to broadcast graphics, ticker tapes and name tags during the event. This means a couple more students are now needed to orchestrate the use of graphics during the broadcast. Other students will be responsible for reading and responding to the chat window as the questions come in from other schools. Other students are taking responsibility for the sound system and audio needs.

Overall, it looks like we'll have about 12-15 students as part of a tech crew that's responsible for broadcasting this exciting event.

Sign up for Mayoral Panel

Calgary Teachers,

As mentioned before, the Calgary Science School is partnering with Youth Can Vote 2010 to host a panel discussion involving Mayoral Candidates for the upcoming election.

We will be using Ustream to broadcast this event. We imagine that schools will have Ustream blocked by their IT department. If teachers are interested in participating, they should contact their IT department and inquiry about the possibility of unblocking Ustream the day of the event.

We are planning a test broadcast the week before the event (Sept 13-17). This will allow us to test the technical requirements on our end, as well as any classrooms interested in participating.

Details for this event are still being finalized (such as the actual date and time) and we would like to collect contact information to allow us to share details with interested teachers.

If you are interesting in having your classroom participate in this event, please fill out the following link. This will allow us to share unfolding information about the event:

Sign up for the Mayor Candidate Panel Discussion by clicking here.

We welcome comments and feedback about this event as we continue to work out the details.

Looking forward to it!!

Watch live streaming video from calgaryscienceschool at livestream.com

Research Confirms Laptop Program

The laptop program at the Calgary Science School is now entering it's 5th year.

Our 1:1 program started in the fall of 2006 with 100 grade 6 students. This first year of the program was made possible through a Personalized Learning Initiative grant through the Alberta Government.

In the 2007/2008 school year the program expanded to grade 6 and 7 and the in fall of 2008 we moved to a full 1:1 program - all 600 students in grades 4-9 were provided with Apple Macbooks. After the first year of the program, we no longer had access to grant capital and had to internally cover the budget for the technology.

Over the course of the first three years of the program, the Galileo Educational Network conducted research on the impact of our laptop program on student engagement and learning. This research has recently been released and the result has been a number of news stories over the last week.

Overall, the outcome of the research is simple:

Laptops have an impact on student learning when combined with effective teaching practices.

Here's a selection of the news stories about our laptop program and the research conducted so far:

This video comes from the University of Calgary's media department:

Schools pave way for digital future - Globe and Mail, Aug 18, 2010

Researchers like laptops in Calgary classroom - CBC, Aug 26, 2010

Technology aiding learning, researchers say - Calgary Sun Aug 29, 2010

Laptops can help: Study - Metro News, Aug 27, 2010

U of C researchers probe whether tech-savvy students have an advantage - Global Toronto, Aug 27th. (Video news story)

We are very open about discussing our laptop program and sharing our 5 year journey with interested teachers and schools.

If you would like to speak with us about our laptop program, or any of the elements of our school, please contact us. You can comment below with contact information or email our Outreach Coordinator, Neil Stephenson, at neil.s@calgaryscienceschool (dot) com.

We look forward to comments, questions and further discussion about this program.