Dayton Regional STEM School News and Events: March 2016

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Facing The Community

By Katie Marker

The seniors of Ms. McDaniel’s English 1100 class are participating in an interesting new project called The Facing Project. This project inspires writers to connect with people in the community and present their stories to increase awareness for issues in the community. The project’s aim is to make connections between humans, and share stories of “triumph and tragedy, of loneliness and community, of hate and happiness, of deep depression and lofty goals.” Wisdom between students is shared, helping them learn and prepare their counterparts for departing to college by increasing social awareness.

Abby and Anders Skype with their partners at Milton-Union.

The project began on March 8^th, with the STEM seniors researching the project and viewing example stories. They also practiced interviewing techniques and drafted questions. The seniors from STEM went on to interview seniors in the English class from Milton-Union High School, taking turns as interviewer and interviewee. Methods of communication included Skype, text messaging, and phone calls. “Some of the students have related this to a game of telephone,” quotes Ms. McDaniel. “You're listening to someone else's story and trying to tell it yourself, putting yourself in someone else's shoes or looking at life from their perspective.” The interviews cover a variety of topics and struggles, from college debt, and moving away from home, to LGBT community harassment, social standing, and living with chronic illness. One of the seniors, Hope Ezell, says that “compared to other projects I’ve done, this has allowed me to use the most creativity. Previously I had been told what my topic would be and choose a thesis, however in this project I was able to pick whatever topic I wanted to discuss as long as it related to college life.” The seniors will continue on to write and share their partner’s story, and it will appear on the Facing Project website. Visit the website at http://facingproject.com/

Cheyenne uses her phone to Skype with her partner at Milton-Union.

The Facing Project is a piece of a larger, multi-genre project that will be taken on by the English 1100 seniors. After completing their story for the Facing Project, they will choose a topic about college to research and present, using multiple genres. Although they must present their topic in narrative, persuasive, and informative form, they can use any genre they wish to do so. Campaign speeches, myths, diary entries, and flyers are just a few examples of the genres they’ve chosen to include. This project is meant to answer the driving question: "How can we help future seniors navigate the task of entering the university?" Presentations are taking place around the school today and tomorrow as students share their knowledge with both seniors and juniors.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

The Renaissance Comes to DRSS Once More

For the second year in a row, students in Mr. Pant's 7th grade world history class are taking part in their annual Renaissance Dinner Party. Invitations to the event invited guests to "The Regional School of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics," located in "the village of Dayton in the land of Ohio."

Christopher Columbus and Has Holbein discuss the Renaissance.

What guests found when they arrived were not 7th graders, but "scientists, artists, statesmen, and explorers" who embodied figures from the Renaissance. The preparations for this party utilized Project-Based Learning to allow students the opportunity to take on the personalities of famous individuals from the Renaissance, including people like William Shakespeare, King Ferdinand, Niccolo Machiavelli, and more.

The party featured five "Acts," beginning with introductions. After having the opportunity to get to know one another, guests transitioned to Renaissance conversations, which featured discussions about different accomplishments. Christopher Columbus, for example, thanked King Ferdinand for his "generous gift" that allowed him "to explore the New World." Next came the "agreements/disagreements" portion of the discussion. During this time students talked about who they would agree or disagree with at the table, learning about what beliefs they may share with others and who they may be at odds with. This was followed by a discussion of their impact and legacy on the world and ended with time for each guest to reflect and write about what they learned from the discussion.

This dinner project came from the mind of Nick Pant, who wanted his class to understand how to empathize with historical figures and understand the effects of cultural diffusion. This year he said he tried to improve upon the project by having students "make connections between their lives and the Renaissance." One example of this included a "Modern Mona Lisa" project, which featured students bringing the Mona Lisa into the 20th century, complete with one student's depiction of the Mona Lisa selfie.

Peter Cooper's "Modern Lisa"

The event was made possible with the help of many parent volunteers who gave up their time to come in and serve the dinner party guests.

Mr. Pant with parents Tanya Groff and Robin Stankas and their daughters, who came in to help serve!

Another special guest was University of Dayton Professor, Laura Hume, who came in costume as Isabella d'Est, a "powerful female figure" from the Renaissance "who turned out to be more politically astute than her husband." Dr. Hume teaches Renaissance and Reformation history at UD. When asked how learning about the Renaissance through this type of activity differs from the traditional way history is taught, Professor Hume explained, "the doing (as opposed to just the seeing and hearing) is a different level of engagement, and it engages the kids in a way that makes them understand that these figures were real people; people who had an impact on our lives today. These were people who ate, talked, corresponded, and interacted; often with each other. They were real human beings, not just two-dimensional people from a book." Asked why she likes helping with the event, Professor Hume explained that it's a "delightful experience," and that these experiences are "meaningful" and "make an impression," and for some of them, which "may spark an interest in the period, or history in general."

Dr. Hume (AKA Isabella d'Est) discusses with students how Humanism played a large role in shaping attitudes and beliefs during the Renaissance.

For next year, Mr. Pant is working with Dr. Hume and looking for ways to diversity the roles students play by trying to find more female historical figures for students to portray. After the success of the Dinner Party for the past two years, it's clear that this will not be the last time these historical figures gather at DRSS to share a meal!

Monday, March 28, 2016

10th Grade Comic Life Project: A Bridge Between History & Chinese

By Katie Jones and Bri Perkins

For nearly a month, tenth graders have been working on an integrated project between their Chinese and History classes. This project is called the Comic Life Project. The Comic Life Project is an assignment where students create a character and show their experience in a specific event that they learned about in their History class and put it in a comic book. Students have been studying Modern China in their History class, including key figures such as Chairman Mao. In their Chinese class, they have been learning about different perspectives of key events that happened in Modern China. For example, Yuli Wang, one of the tenth grade Chinese teachers, gives perspective on China. Another Chinese teacher for the tenth grade, Lily Chen, gives the perspective of Taiwan.

A sample of the English/Chinese comics students are creating in World History and Chinese.

That's not the only thing students are doing though. Have you seen tenth graders with little red books? This is just a small part in this project. When asked about the red books, Mr. Nuñez, the tenth grade History teacher said, “Ten years from now most my students will forget dates and names, but I’m confident they won’t forget being terrorized for two weeks just to carry around a little book.” When asking a tenth grader how she felt about the little red books, Anjali Phadke said, “I really like the fact that it’s roleplaying. It’s really annoying for me right now because I don’t want to have to carry my red book everywhere, but it’s showing us a time where people actually had to do this.”

During the Cultural Revolution, Chinese people under the leadership of Chairman Mao were forced to carry around little red books, a rule enforced by the Red Guard. When asked to summarize what the Red Guard was, Phadke responded with, “The red guard were usually teenage students who were basically brainwashed with the fact that Mao was this amazing person. They would be able to see who did/didn’t have their little red book, and they could execute or beat them up.” For tenth graders, a select few students and teachers were chosen to be the Red Guard and randomly book check students at any time in the day. “I love how frantic some of my students have been during the red book checks. I can almost see some real terror in their eyes when I catch them off guard in the hallway or before and after school to check for their red books,” Nuñez added.

Another part of the integrated project is being able to choose what event they want to make their comic strip about. These events include the Mukden Incident, Chinese Civil War, rebellions, and the Tiananmen Square Massacre. They also get to choose a key figure in Modern China to include in their comic. When asked where the idea came from, Chen responded with, “I had this idea six years ago when I met Mr. Grieve, who was the history teacher at the time; he was teaching Modern China, and I was working on Comic Life Binder to help teach Chinese. I thought, ‘Wow that might be a good match.’”

When asked their favorite part of the project so far, teacher Yuli Wang and Shivani Selvam, a tenth grader, had similar responses. “My favorite part of this project is to be able to provide students ‘insider’ perspectives of the historical figures/events,” responded Wang. “I like the fact we get to choose our event and the people who are in it. I also like how we get to create our own character, put them into that historical event, and make our own situation,” was Selvam’s response.

To summarize the entire project, all teachers said the same thing: that making it an integrated project allows for students to gain a better insight than they could in individual classes. Wang said, “We decided to make it an integrated project because of the authentic connection between the Chinese class and the modern China unit in History class.” Chen added, “The most important thing is to build a bridge, connecting culture and language because culture plays such a big part in learning a language. Culture is something accumulated through history. That is why I think this project is important for students learning Chinese.” Along the same lines, Nuñez said, “Making this project integrated with the Chinese classes adds so much more than I would be able to offer myself. All year students have been getting tastes of Chinese culture just from learning the language, and now we have been able to show students the history that formed this culture.”

Monday, March 21, 2016

Music in STEM

By Katie Jones

Music has come to DRSS. As a technology-based school, STEM has not had a music program until this year. Principal Strickland started the program, partnering with Complete Music Education. Complete Music Education was already teaching a few students who went to DRSS, who mentioned that DRSS was looking for a way to start a music program. After that, the director of the program, Ms. Emily Fetters, reached out to Principle Strickland and came up with a way to give students here an opportunity to learn music. As director of the program, she will be overseeing all of the teachers and making sure everything is organized. She will also help modify and add to the program as it grows.

Seven teachers from Complete Music Education will give private lessons as well as offer band and choir. Students will be able to learn a variety of music from every time period and genre. According to Ms. Fetters, this is because "It's important to study not only contemporary repertoire, but also classical pieces as well, because each genre brings a new technique or skill to the table." The students will also have a chance to choose what songs or pieces they want to learn. There are currently plans for an end of year concert and a private lessons recital. Ms. Fetters also stated that "We would like to add choir come fall and possibly music theory classes as well."

This is a new and exciting program that has come to STEM. Students, Ms. Strickland, and Ms. Fetters are excited for it to start, as summed up with this quote by Ms. Fetters herself, "We are very excited to be working with all of the students and we look forward to watching the program grow."

Mollie Emrick: The Great Achiever

By Shetasia Akridge

Mollie Emrick is an eighth grader at Dayton Regional STEM School (DRSS). She is well-known for her academics, as well creating programs to raise awareness for the school that she believes in. Mollie is hardworking and a dedicated student at DRSS.

Molly Emrick is in the eight grade at DRSS.

This year, Mollie created a human trafficking awareness day at the DRSS. She created this program with input from a few of her friends who had ideas about how to spread raise awareness of the problem of human trafficking. During ACE Month, Mollie and her friends would read statistics over the intercom at the end of the day. They even started an Instagram account to raise awareness of statistics about human trafficking.

Many students just attend DRSS, but Mollie Emrick also spends time to help develop programs to improve student’s math skills. Mollie has helped introduce the MathCounts club to DRSS, an after-school program where students compete against each other and other school districts. Not only does she care for her school but she cares about the education of other students as well.

In addition, she is also a student ambassador at DRSS. A student ambassador is someone who shows visitors our school and speaks on behalf of the school on special events. Outside of school, Mollie volunteers at Community Harvest Church as a Sunday School teacher, where she teaches 2^nd and 3^rd graders. She also attends her church's youth groups as a student leader and enjoys helping with the library and nursery at her church.

Mollie is transforming into a stronger women with great leadership, confidence, and power and demonstrates the power of peer-to-peer education. Her confidence allows her to stand up for the rights of others and not to let anyone discourage her beliefs. She is making real changes in the world and at DRSS.

Once Mollie becomes a freshman in high school she is also interested in becoming a part of Key Club. She would like to continue with MathCounts during her high school experience. Currently, her main goal is to learn how to do American Sign Language (ASL) to teach people with disabilities from ages 2-20. In addition, she wants to maintain her current academic standing while exploring the life of being in high school at DRSS.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

DRSS 2016 College & Career Fair A Success!

Yesterday's Career Fair was a success!

The 2016 College & Career Fair was one for the record books, with over 620 students visiting with 47 participating organizations. Students had an amazing opportunity to meet with professionals in business, government, and academia, and learn about what it takes to "make it" in their professions. The list of attendees included the following organizations:

American Chemical Society, Dayton Section
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
American Institute of Architects, Dayton Chapter
Air Force Institute of Technology
Air Force Research Lab
Air Force E.O.D.
Brady Ware & Company
Clark State Community College
Cubic Global Defense
Discovery Lab Global
FASTLANE-MEP
Freedom Scientific
General Electric Aviation (TDI, EPIS, & Unison/Elano)
Kindred Hospital
LexisNexis Risk Solutions
Lunarline Inc. (Silver Sponsor)
MacAir Aviation
Montgomery County Environmental Services
NASA Glenn Research Center
Ohio EPA
PCU
Premier Health
Regional STEM Collaborative
Reynolds & Reynolds
Sinclair Community College

Admissions
STEM Division
National UAS Training and Certification Center

Solid Blend Technologies
Tangible Solutions
Tremco, Inc. (Gold Sponsor)
U.S. Army
Virtalis
Welker Studio
WilmerHale
Woolpert
Wright State University

Admissions
College of Education & Human Services (Gold Sponsor)
College of Engineering & Computer Science
College of Liberal Arts Center for Liberal Arts Student Success
College of Science & Mathematics (Gold Sponsor)
College of Nursing & Health
Charles & Renate Frydman Educational Resource Center
Office of Disability Services
Political Science Department
Statistical Consulting Center

The event was made possible with the help of our sponsors. Gold level sponsors included Wright State's College of Education and Human Services and College of Science and Mathematics, as well as Tremco, Inc. Lunarline served as a silver level sponsor, and VidCruiter was a bronze level sponsor. Thank you to all of them!

Gold Level Sponsors - Wright State University's College of Education and Human Services

Gold Level Sponsors - Wright State University's College of Science and Mathematics

Gold Level Sponsors - Tremco, Inc.

WDTN even came out and did a story on the event. Check it out below!

DRSS Career Fair 2016 on WDTN
Yesterday was a huge success as we held our annual College & Career Fair! Check out the story from WDTN-TV and see pictures from the event on our blog, here - http://daytonstemschool.blogspot.com/2016/03/drss-2016-college-career-fair-success.html
Posted by Dayton Regional STEM School on Thursday, March 17, 2016

The event was well-attended by organizations of all kinds. We greatly appreciate each and every organization who came to participate. Check out pictures from the event below to see who was there!

Students learn about different options available to them in the military with the U.S. Army and Air Force, including the Air Force Institute of Technology and the Air Force Research Lab.