Journey North

Could you figure out a mystery city given a series of sunrise and sunset times, data to calculate the longitude and a couple of clues? Glendover 4th and 5th Grade ESL students are doing just that with some guidance from their teacher, Mrs. Snyder. They are participating in an investigation sponsored by Journey North, a website that helps students gain a better understanding of the world around them and how it changes daily. Mrs. Snyder's ESL students were one of the 21 classes in the 5^th grade across the US that figured out all the mystery cities (and the only one in KY). 

The website, http://www.learner.org/jnorth/ explains the activity:
"The Mystery Class investigation is an 11-week hunt in which students try to find 10 secret "Mystery Classes" hiding around the globe. The changing amount of sunlight at each site is the central clue. Students take an inspiring journey from knowing only sunrise and sunset times, to discovering exact locations of the 10 Mystery Classes. This investigation demonstrates that, as spring sweeps across the Northern Hemisphere, day length changes everywhere on earth. Students see that these dramatic seasonal changes in sunlight affect the entire web of life." 

Mrs. Snyder stated that students need to use science, social studies, math, reading and technology to aid them in solving the mystery. A bulletin board in her classroom now serves as "data central", where students plot the changing amount of sunlight as provided by the website. Clues given by Journey North are also posted along with the student calculations of longitude. Students can easily glance at the information while looking at a world map. Since Mrs. Snyder's class is made up of many nationalities, many of her students get excited with the possibility that the mystery city might be in their home country. For more information about mystery cities or for lesson plans and activities, please visit the website.

Spanish classes at Morton Middle School put their knowledge of Spanish clothing vocabulary to work when they created commercials for a Spanish department store, El Corte Inglés.  Students gathered pictures of a variety of clothing articles and wrote the Spanish dialogue to go with the clothing.  Then using Windows Movie Maker, they created their own commercials.  These 8th graders were engaged and excited about what they were doing.

After everyone had finished their commercials, the classes set up the popcorn machine and enjoyed watching the commercials together.

View the actual student created examples in this month's Through a Student's Eyes.

This year Mrs. Brenda Nally’s class (shown at left) at Clays Mill Elementary participated in the Fayette County Forum.  What was unique about our experience was that our technology teacher found a teacher in Bavaria, Miss Sabine Saalwirth, whose class (shown at right) communicated with us about our cultural similarities and differences.  It has been so much fun to learn a little German and teach them a little English! We found out that kids in Germany are really just like us!  

They made a website called the Easter hunt.  They asked us if we could record our voices and they used our voices on their website.  Check it out:  http://www.pfaffenwinkel.de/schulen/grundschule.burggen/englisch/Ostereier/Kathrin.html

Fourth Grade students at Booker T. Washington have been studying about the state of Kentucky. They have learned a lot of interesting and unusual information about their state and would like to share their findings. The information they have gathered is located on a web page on their school's website. http://www.btw.fcps.net/welcome_to_kentucky.htm The information on the web page ranges from Adolph Rupp to the Kentucky Derby, to the Grey Squirrel. Visit the site to learn more about our state!