Nevada Museum of Art

We had a great field trip to the Nevada Museum of Art today. After learning about patterns in class yesterday with Morse Code and Binary Code. This theme of patterns was followed up at the museum as we analyzed the art for patterns. Students also had an hour art workshop while there.

Hummingbird Bits: Programming Movements

This week we moved into the next phase of our computer science. Our class was able to obtain on load a kit of Hummingbird Bits, valued around $3000. Students create physical objects that can be incorporated with circuit boards, LED lights, and moving parts and then program it to wirelessly move through Bluetooth. Our first task was to build a "jitterbug" where students write code to activate movement of its feet and coloration of LED lights, along with initiating a photo-voltaic switch to turn it off and on based on lighting conditions. We will finish building the jitterbug next week as well as write the code.

George Washington Visits

The class had a surprise guest on Friday as General George Washington visited the class to talk about his experiences in the Revolutionary war.

Podcasting

This week we began connecting all the writing and interviewing we have done over the past few weeks and piled it into IMovie to create our finished product, a podcast that tells a story. Students began recording their introductions and imported their interviews into the program. The rest of this week they will edit the interviews, cutting out unimportant parts and merging the best with their narrative on their topic. Topics include: history of tator tots, the fundraising efforts of Beck's art auction, how students and teachers feel about the cheer squad for the soccer team, the explosion of break-out rooms in Reno, and more.

Skype Learning to PA

Tuesday our class learned from specialists at a museum in Pennsylvania through a Skype Call. Students interacted with hands-on items from a kit they shipped to our classroom while specialists from the museum discussed each object. The Skype call ended with students being able to ask questions. Pretty unique!

Coding Wagons

For the past few weeks students have had the task of engineering a wagon that could be pulled by a Sphero coding robot. Today we tested them out during our social studies time. Students coded the Sphero to pull the wagon to a station. At the station the group read information on the Revolutionary War era, discussed it, and wrote down a good answer. The wagon was then coded to move to another station.

Youth Wildlife Conservation Experience

Our field experience to the Reno-Sparks Convention Center was a huge success. Students had 2 keynote speakers on wildlife conservation. They also went through three seminars on different careers in the outdoors. After lunch two hours were spent on hands-on learning stations. From rock climbing, to entomology (including eating bugs if they liked), to duck calling, to seeing raptors, and so much more.