Architecture Meets Engineering in Upper School Honors Engineering

Senior Honors Art Students Use Tumblr as Project Workspace

Upper School Honors Art Seniors are in the midst of an intensive artist in residency project guided by GA Alum and professional designer, Clay Kippen. He has been working with our students here on campus, through online support, and through media conferencing to help seniors develop new insight into their creativity and art making in general.  Emphasizing design thinking processes, collaboration, and play, students are making art in response to one prompt per day through the month of April. You can see what our artists are making each day by clicking here.

Upper School Students Head to Nationals for Sea Perch Engineering Competition

Humans of GA (A Lower School Photography Project)

Kindergarden Makes Snap Curcuit Flying Saucers

Memes: Storytelling & Digital Writing

Making memes in class might sound counterproductive, but on the contrary it has been quite an illuminating and worthwhile experience for members of David Baroody’s seventh grade history classes, who create memes throughout the year to better understand various elements of history.
By definition, according to KQED Education, “a meme can be any kind of idea, action or creative output that is picked up, copied and repeated within a culture. ‘Internet Memes’ have become a popular way to describe various Internet trends that you might associate with viral videos, images or phrases that originate and spread quickly online. But most often, if someone refers to a ‘meme’, they mean a specific type of meme characterized by a familiar still image captioned with text based on a particular style of joke associated with that image. These sorts of images with text were originally called image macros, but are now popularly known as memes.”
By creating memes, students are being asked to do a variety of tiered analysis as they explore and think about the text and subtext of historical images, and then create their own memes using those images.
"It’s a hook for students,” said Mr. Baroody, who presented his two-day meme lesson plan to the Pennsylvania Association of Independent Schools conference in October 2014, and at the National Council for the Social Studies conference in Boston in November 2014. “It’s leading students from the concrete to the abstract. It pairs writing with visual analysis. It capitalizes on something the kids already know.”
In September, students in Mr. Baroody’s class made memes about Tres Riches Heures, a French Gothic illumination that details late medieval life in each month of the calendar year.
“As little textual evidence survives that documents the everyday lives of average individuals in medieval France, my students mined the images from the calendar to answer important questions,” said Mr. Baroody. “What do you observe in your images? How do you know it’s important? What is the text and subtext conveyed by the artists? The images are one of the only places in medieval art that you see everyday life. The history of the medieval ages is an age of a very select few of upper end society.”
Working in pairs and small groups, students created Google Docs that shared their initial thoughts about the images from Tres Riches Heures and their answers to the unit questions. The next day, Mr. Baroody challenged his students to make memes based on what they learned.
“The text of their meme explains the subtext of the image they are using,” said Mr. Baroody. “The images were all about the different levels of societies in late medieval France and the disparity between the upper class and working class.”
Students completed similar analysis and meme creation right before winter break as they studied the Boston Massacre in 1770.
“They will do another in the next several weeks as we start looking into the various arguments for or against the ratification of the Constitution,” said Mr. Baroody.
“Seventh grade is all about transitioning students from thinking concretely to thinking abstractly and giving them tools to scaffold toward higher order thinking,” added Mr. Baroody. “This is an activity that meets them where they are and give them tools to continue to maturing. From a 21st century standpoint, memes work because you already have an understanding of the image. The writing you do produces new meaning. The kids love it.”

"Teaching 21st Century Students to Read," Rebecca Burnett

US English Chair, Rebecca Burnett has been re-imagining how to teach literature in an age when "informational texts" have supplanted literature in a well-intentioned, but, she believes, misguided effort to make readings in class relevant to students' lives.  GA's approach works to achieve the same ends, but does so in a different way.  Click here to read an article authored by Burnett for The national Association of Independent Schools.

Statistics in Action

Students in Rith Carver's Statistics in Action course are partnering with Mural Arts to help the organization collect and understand data about community impact of their art installations.  Earlier this year, students visited the organization and heard from key players including Director of their Porch Light program and GA alum, Laure Biron.

Students Engineer Sea Glide Submergible Device with Mike Kelly

Upper School Engineers Off to Nationals!

On Saturday, March 18th, ten of GA’s Engineering (H) students participated in two robotics competitions: the SeaPerch Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Challenge and the SeaGlide Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Challenge. Our team won so many awards! The biggest trophy was for the SeaPerch Overall and Contract Award. Other awards for SeaPerch included: 1st in the Pool Performance (and a chance to go to Nationals), 2nd in the Engineer’s Notebook, and 6th in the Presentation Category. There were over 30 high schools in SeaPerch this year, and our ROV was the only one to complete the new “Pipeline” Challenge!T hese honors have earned GA's engineering class an invitation to attend the national competition later this spring.

4th Grade Student Engineers design Toys for African Monkey Sanctuary

4^th graders were visited by Animal Defenders International (ADI) Education Director, Gigi Glendinning.  Gigi shared stories about several monkeys ADI rescued from harmful situations, and brought to Lakeview Monkey Sanctuary, in the UK. Practicing empathy, the students spent time thinking about the experiences and the needs of these primates; specifically, their need to be mentally stimulated.  They used the DESIGN THINKING PROCESS to create toys that will fascinate and challenge the monkeys.  The students worked collaboratively to brainstorm (or IDEATE) their sketches on paper.  The next step was to build a sculptural sketch, (or PROTOTYPE).  The prototype needed to go through multiple adjustments (or ITERATIONS), before it was ready. The students used tools such as drills, saws, hot glue guns, and clamps.  Some of the materials included rope, wood, cardboard, felt and tubing.  Every prototype was put to the TEST as students pulled, banged, dropped and played with their designs….just as if they were monkeys themselves! The children wrote letters, descriptions and project titles to go along with each toy.  They also recorded video interviews describing their work.  We plan to send all of the prototypes overseas to Lakeview this spring and look forward to seeing pictures or videos of the monkeys enjoying them!