What do geometry, Walter Cronkite and Forest Gump have in common?

Last week the 7th/8th Grade CREW worked really hard to complete an essay about Walter Cronkite and his influence on the Vietnam War. Two weeks ago we read his, 'We are mired in Stalemate" broadcast immediately after the Tet Offensive in 1968. Students were asked to write a five paragraph essay to explain the message of the broadcast, and they were asked to explain why this message was more important because of Walter Cronkite. There were a few tears, there might have been some laughs, but everyone finished (except for a few absentees).

In 8th Grade Math we have successfully completed our units on Algebra Basics, Linear Equations, Pythagorean Theorem, and Exponential Equations. After our test on Exponential Equations on Wednesday, we began a new unit on Geometry Basics. The first Investigation is in symmetry. On the first day, I brought in pattern blocks and gave them the period to create a design with the most lines of symmetry. Unfortunately for me my challenge was lost in the excitement, but fortunately for the 8th graders they quickly resorted to their 2nd grade-selves and experimented with the patterns. The end result was several gigantic and fascinating designs. These designs allowed us to discuss symmetry, and even with their best efforts the lesson was not lost. Hence there is the experiential learning in Action.

At the end of the day friday, we watched the a section of Forest Gump. The discussion of how movies portray the Vietnam War was extremely rich, and the students seemed to really open up and discuss their appreciation for our military service men and women. As a class we also watched the movie critically, and we discussed the use of music in the film. The film makers of Forest Gump used music from the time period to create emotion and to change the mood of the film. Overall it was a wonderful experience, and I think the students found a new appreciation for film making.

This coming week, we will begin our final products for our Power to the People expedition. We will be working on those and a few other projects over the remaining four weeks of this trimester. If you know any veterans of the Vietnam War, who would like to come talk with us about their experiences with the War. Please send me their contact information. We are currently working on a class wide project, and we would love to have some people involved to interview.

FInally a new Post!

One of our class jobs this trimester has been to write a weekly post for the 7/8 CREW blog. Unfortunately we had difficulty with this challenge, and as a result we haven't been posting regularly enough for this 7/8 CREW blog to be effective. It was a combination of short notice, poor teacher oversight, and the fact that we are always busy. Therefore I have decided to take back over the responsibility of blogging for our CREW. I do encourage students to follow, and I encourage them to post questions and comments.

Our 2nd trimester expedition was called Songs of Change, but today I am officially changing it to Power of the People. Why? Our expedition is into the Vietnam War, the power of public opinion, and how we can alter public opinion. The Vietnam War was a major turning point in our American History. Music, Art, Television, Cinema and print media dramatically changed the political landscape of our Nation. After decades of Cold War, a generation motivated by music and art changed the public opinion on our Foreign Policies. Initially we were only going to examine music and musicians, but we have discovered through research the power of news anchor Walter Cronkite, boxer Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King Jr., photographers, artist like Bob Masse, and writers.

On the very first day of our expedition, we began with a mystery gallery walk. I placed 60 pictures of musicians, military efforts of the Vietnam War, Presidents of the time, and major protests like the Human Be In and Woodstock. Students were asked to walk around silently recording questions and comments about the pictures into their expedition journals. At the same time I played songs about the Vietnam War from Janis Joplin, CCR, Bob Dylan, Beatles, the Animals, and Jefferson Airplane. I asked them to come to school the next day in the costume of the time period they thought we would be studying.

During our Building Background Knowledge, we began with a common text/ song. Country Joe and the Fish who sang I'm A Fixin To Die Rag Thyme. We first listened to it a few times, and discussed how it was sort of a silly song but with dark lyrics. We then examined the lyrics and asked questions. Students were asked to write a letter to a friend, pretend that they were a teenager in 1968, and describe their thoughts and feelings about the lyrics. After the common text, students were given experts texts/songs from other influential artist of the 60's. They examined the texts, wrote their fictional letters, and we then shared them as a whole class.

Over the last few weeks, we have learned about the foreign policies that led us into the Vietnam War, the Truman Doctrine of 1947, the Domino Theory of 1954, and the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. Students created a timeline of major events between 1945 (The end of WWII) and 1975. We have looked at the geography of Indochina, read in depth on major events like the Tet Offensive, Operation Rolling Thunder, and the My Lai Massacre.

After gaining a context of the war itself, we began to consider the change of public support for the war between the years 1965 and 1970. One of the most influential people in America at the time was Walter Cronkite and his famous "We are mired in Stalemate" broadcast of 1968. This past week, we have discussed different kinds of protesting and their effectiveness. Our next step will be to examine major protests during this time period.

On top of all that, students are beginning a new Literature Circle this week. They have their assignments, have picked their groups, begun to establish a reading schedule, and they have chosen their books. Their final literature report will have a vocabulary log, chapter summaries, and an essay comparing themselves to a main character in the story.

We also got a lot of snow this week!!!

12/4-9/11

A New Expedition

7-8 crew started the week off with an new expedition, we have been going all in with costumes, drawings, music, and even letters of recommendations to friends. On Monday we went on a gallery walk, which included pictures from the time period of our expedition. On tuesday we all dressed up as the characters from the time period we thought our expedition took place in. Then Mr.Ellsworth revealed the secret,our expedition was about the Vietnam War! On Wednesday we listened to music from the 60s and wrote letters from the point of views from teens, THursday we chose picture from the gallery walk, and began to draw them with the best of our abilities. We wrapped up the week with finalizing one letter of recommendation of a song to a friend!

Greek Mythology Lesson

This week we did a Greek mythology lesson about Athens, Argo, Corinth, Sparta, and Megara.

Tuesday:We got in groups depending on the city-state. Once we got in those groups we preformed informing skits about the city-states.

Wednesday:We got in our groups, and did a art project called mosaic.

Thursday: Got in our groups and made a chariot out of our bodies, and had a race. We played simon says. then we did a skit in our groups only using movements

Friday: Wrote non fiction story about one of the state cities.

BY: Eleanore Faunce

Book-A-Ween

Monday was halloween, obviously almost everyone wore a costume. So we didn't get much work done, because everyone was exited about the night and stuffing there face full of candy. Other that that, it was a pretty normal day. Tuesday: ....normal. Wednesday: BOOK FAIR!!!!! it was kinda loud cause all the grades went to see all the books and their prices. We went to see the books too, but we were last. Finally we ended up looking around for about ten minutes but it seemed that everyone was sorta sad when we all had to go back to the classroom. Thursday, there was a bunch of arguing at P.E. while we were playing football. We worked on some pie charts that calculated how much trash ,garbage, composting, and recycling materials would pass through the entire school in a week (5 days) a month (20 days) and a year (165 days). That made us all realize exactly how much materials we all wasted in the entire school. On Friday Carly (Art Student From University of Idaho) came to teach art, and the art we did this time was a piece of paper that had drawings that we thought symbolized us in our own way. Everyone had amazing art, even though not everyone is finished yet. - Hannah and Harrison

Thank You Forbes

The highlight of our week was our visit to the Forbes House on Moscow mountain. Lahde, Mike, Rennie and Owen live in a sustainable house at the base of Moscow Mountain. Mike Forbes led a tour showing us how they conserve electricity, built an energy efficient house, and use rainwater instead of ground water.

Mike first showed us the rain catching system. He uses his shed's roof to collect the water. He said that this area averages 28inches of rain a year and that is plenty of rain for his family to survive off. He took us into the water storage area. He has four large tanks that holds 6,000 gallons of water. In the winter time, there is so much rain they actually have to dump extra water. In the summer their tanks are a little lower, but they don't typically go below 1500 gallons of water. He's currently installing an old above ground pool to hold another 20,000 gallons to irrigate their garden and orchard.

Their solar panels work on a net meter, therefore they are still connect to the power grid. As their solar panels absorb energy from the sun, it powers the house and charge their battery. If they have extra energy it is sold to the power company, and when the Sun is not shining they purchase energy from the power company. Conceptually they should break even, selling energy in the summer and purchasing energy in the winter.

They also use passive solar heating through their house's windows, which means they purposefully angled their house to maximize the sunlight coming through windows in the winter and minimize the sunlight in the summer.

The house is heated using a masonry heater which is similar to a wood burning stove, surrounded with brinks, and the bricks absorb the heat as the fire burns. The heat in the bricks slowly heats the house and maintains the temperature around 68F for the entire day. The students liked this the best, since they were freezing after standing outside.

Overall the house was built with purpose, wise choices and passion. Each detail was considered, methodically created, and it is a beautiful house. Their three main goals was to create a house that was sustainable, to share the love for sustainability, and inspire others. They wanted to recycle as much material as possible, use no toxic materials, and purchase local materials. Mike said its great to buy local not only because it is better for the environment, but it is nice to employ your friends, neighbors and community members.

Personally I was blown away, the students learned a lot, and I think we all felt privileged to be able to visit.

One Man's Trash!

This week a lot of things happened. Thursday we all went to the recycling center and learned a large amount of things that most of us didn't know before. One of the awesome things that we saw was a machine that separated the aluminum cans from any other materials that weren't aluminum such as tin or steel cans. The machine used a magnetic conveyer belt that didn't stick to the pop cans. We learned how they conserved space by taking all of the paper and using a baler which made the paper take the form of something like a hay bale. If they didn't use the baler, then they wouldn't have very much space to work.

Also everybody got to go in one of the inner offices and sit on a rug that was crocheted out of textile scraps, we saw art that was made from everyday things like soda cans and bottle caps. On our way there we also experienced something new we all took the city bus to the recycling center, but we walked all the way back.
On Tuesday the 7/8 crew took out all the trash and recycling from all the classrooms at 9:35 in the morning and put it all in the appropriate places. The next day on Wednesday at the same time in the morning as the day before, we had prepared ourselves with science goggles, masks that looked like they belonged on surgeons, and latex gloves. Then we all went to different appointed areas and collected the 24 hours worth of trash and recycling from the entire building. We went through everything that was collected and sorted it into different groups like Food Waste, Garbage, and Recycling. There were also other more specific groups, but after our crew sorted out each group we weighed everything and put the amount in lbs on the board. Some of the things that were in the trash were pretty disgusting but all of us survived digging through it all.

Afterwards we learned that our masks and safety gear scared some of the much younger kids pretty badly, having them stopping and running in the opposite direction to get away from the "scary monsters" that we looked like. Monday we didn't have a field trip and worked on Lit. Circles, reading our favorite place stories, and the first day of a ultimately healthier lunch that tasted much better than the school district lunch that we had before. Today, on Friday we were going to go to a dairy farm but that got cancelled, so we have been reading to the kindergardeners and finishing our Lit. circles and trying to finish our energy pamphlets.