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Hands-on History: Standing on the Timeline of Human History
The timelines that historians use to visualize change over time can be baffling to sixth graders. How can a person who has been alive for eleven years conceptualize millions of years of life on earth? Or understand how comparatively brief man’s time on earth has been? “I always taught the concepts of scale and sense […]
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Aspen Academy’s Spanish Muralist Club
Aspen Academy’s Spanish Muralist Club encourages student artists to explore Spanish history through their creative talent. This semester, our students learned about Mexican artists, Posada, Clemente, Kahlo, and Rivera, and the effect that major historical events had on their individual styles. The result was their elongated Dia de los muertos ‘esqueleto’ that was displayed at […]
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Students Experience, Enjoy “Green Cuisine”
Sidwell Friends has been committed to cleaner and greener food since 2004; its “Green Cuisine” program now incorporates, wherever possible, ingredients and practices that are truly sustainable. Teaching “food intelligence” is an important factor. The menu planning, preparation methods, ingredients, and dishes make everyone on campus more mindful. “Meatless Menus” emphasize that eating less meat […]
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Moms with Scientific Careers Support New “Girls in Science” Club
This fall at Ranney School in Tinton Falls, NJ, the Upper School launched a Girls in Science Club. Made up of both female and male members, the club’s goal is to motivate and inspire girls to study and stay in science, whether it’s medicine, engineering, marine biology and so forth, says Club Founder and Advisor […]
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Design Thinking and Global Perspectives
Decades ago, astronomer Gerald Hawkins predicted humans would grapple with the presently inconceivable, mind-stretching discoveries, and dramatic shifts to paradigms in our universe. Colorado Academy’s “Global Perspectives in the 21st Century” course for high school freshmen is a course that uses design thinking to prepare students for the world that Hawkins imagined. CA History teacher […]
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Adventure, Math, and Writing Animate History
Back in the mid-1800s, when the pioneers set off on the Oregon Trail from Missouri, it took about five months to make the grueling 2,000-mile expedition by covered wagon. This fall, thanks to modern technology and creative teachers, Principia School’s third-grade students have virtually and directly experienced the same journey over a period of just […]
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A Personalized Education
The chance to seek intellectual experiences of substance and meaning is a prerogative of every MBS student. Sometimes, though, a student has a desire to explore a subject not offered in our standard curriculum. To address this gap, we have created an Independent Study Program that has become one of the hallmarks of our curriculum. […]
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Mindfulness Brings Healthier, Happier Lives for Students and Teachers
Greenhill School began offering Inner Light: Traditions and Paths of Meditation to juniors and seniors in 2009. The elective class was aimed at honing personal awareness and mindfulness, skills that help manage stress and encourage healthier choices. Soon after, recurring student feedback—“I wish I’d had this earlier”—caught the attention of Upper School administrators. “We realized […]
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The Human Body and Ableism
In third grade CDS students deepen their study of the human body through a Community Based Learning unit about ableism. Students participate in several simulations that provide them with first-hand experience of what it’s like to be differently abled. First, they conduct joint task immobilizations where they limit the use of some of their finger […]
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Dia de los Muertos: Celebrating Our Community
Each year CDS students and their families participate in the creation of Día de los Muertos altars on the first floor of our main school building and in the preschool classrooms. El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), a holiday celebrated in Mexico, Latin American countries, and right here in San Francisco, is […]
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Take Them Outside!
At CDS, the inspiring outdoor preschool classroom helps children uncover their creative selves. Did you know that studies indicate that children like to play with natural materials—such as stumps, rocks, sticks, seeds, leaves and pine cones—more than human-engineered playground equipment? In our amazing outdoor learning space the children have access to a fabulous mud kitchen […]
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Finding a Different Mindset: Girls Learn from Positive Stereotypes
Inspired by the work noted social psychologist Claude Steele began on stereotype threat, Laurel School’s Center for Research on Girls designed programming to counteract the effects that girls, a group negatively stereotyped in terms of math and science ability, may feel in high-stakes testing situations. For the past five years, Laurel has educated its upper […]