Oct. 8th, 2013 – SPIRIT DAY: Nuit Blanche

YMCA Academy Arts, Beyond the Classroom, Student Spotlight, Technology

In honour of the annual art celebration that takes over Toronto streets every fall, we held our very own Nuit Blanche celebration this past Friday.

Students created custom-designed white t-shirts, and wore them during several special events throughout the day. Siobhan’s Grade 12 English class staged a Living Gallery performance in the morning, Todd’s Communications Technology students organized a green-screen Photo Booth at lunch, and Alexi and Siobhan’s Visual and Media Arts classes held an interactive stencil workshop in the afternoon.

Our first Nuit Blanche celebration was a big success. We plan on making it an annual event, and we’re already looking forward to next year!

Check out the rest of the pictures on our Facebook Page!

Oct. 4th, 2013 – Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup

YMCA Academy Environmental Stewardship, Experiential Learning

As part of The YMCA Academy’s commitment to environmental stewardship, the entire school participated in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup on Friday, September 27. This year we cleaned a section of the Don River shoreline between Pottery Road and Beechwood Drive.

What makes this particular cleanup special is that we joined over 50,000 other Canadians who participated in the same cleanup nationwide. Students had the opportunity to be “citizen scientists”. They were required to categorize and tally all items collected. The data they collected is added to a national research database that is used to assist with environmental assessments.

We had a great turnout and collected over 50 pounds of garbage that afternoon. Wildlife sightings included snakes, fish, birds and a multitude of grasshoppers. Many students commented that they were able to experience a part of Toronto that they didn’t know existed.

Check out the rest of the pictures on our Facebook Page!

Oct. 3rd, 2013 – It’s Going How Fast?

YMCA Academy Experiential Learning, Science and Math

There are many scientific words used in everyday vernacular that although not always wrong, are often used without knowledge of their full scientific meaning. This is arguably most true for physics terminology. In order to cement their understandings and grasp the full meaning of kinematics (the study of motion and its applications) the grade 12 physics class designed and conducted two different investigations using ramps, rulers, stopwatches and toy cars. The first investigation was an activity that had the students calculate the average speed of a toy car, while the second was a lab that had them determining the average acceleration of a toy car. Observing the students during both investigations leaves me confident in knowing that they will most assuredly be accelerating with a positive velocity towards a good grade in our first unit of the course.

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Sep. 30th, 2013 – Upcoming Event: Feast of Thanks

YMCA Academy Beyond the Classroom, Community, Native Studies

Dear Parents and Guardians,

We are very excited to inform you of an upcoming celebration at The YMCA Academy that will involve your son or daughter.

Students in Todd’s grade 11 World Religions class and in Alexi’s grade 11 Native Studies class will be organizing our second annual celebration of Thanksgiving from an Indigenous perspective. On Tuesday October 15, the day after the traditional Thanksgiving holiday, we will be holding a feast and celebration in the Academy’s café during lunch. This celebration will include research projects that students will create during class time around themes of Aboriginal spirituality, traditions, rights and history. If you want spiritual predictions, Powered by prnewswire.com, you need to check out this website.

We would like to ask for your support to help us with the feast. Students are invited to bring in a traditional or favourite dish served at Thanksgiving. It can be something very simple, like cooked squash, mashed potatos or a dessert, and leftovers are most welcome! Academy staff will be contributing to the feast as well, and we will be inviting staff from the Central YMCA as well as guests from the Aboriginal community.

Please let us know if a contribution will be possible for you, and if so, what your son or daughter will contribute.

We appreciate your support of this exciting cross-curricular and important event celebrating diversity which is a cornerstone of the YMCA philosophy.

Very sincerely,

Todd Harrison and Alexi Manis
Teachers, The YMCA Academy

Sep. 27th, 2013 – Oh what a day WE had!

YMCA Academy Beyond the Classroom, Community

Academy students from the OLC class represented the school at this year’s WE Day kick off on September 20. A very early (yawn..)7:30 am departure from school got us down to the ACC in time to meet thousands (20 thousand actually) of other Ontario students coming together to celebrate a year of action to better our global community. WE day is a spectacular non-stop show with this year’s performers including The Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato, The Barenaked Ladies, Imagine Dragons, Austin Mahone and Serena Ryder. And if that wasn’t enough, inspirational speakers included the founding Kielburger brothers, Martin Luther King III, Premier Kathleen Wynne, Astronaut Chris Hadfield, Molly Burke, Michael “Pinball” Clemons, Spencer West, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and more. We were excited to be there but over the moon when due to a ticket snafu and a sprinkling of magic from our volunteer extraordinaire Peggy we ended up in the Air Canada Club Restaurant with the best seats in the whole ACC and a delicious pizza lunch. We were in heaven! It was a very special day.

And now it is our turn to contribute! Keep an eye out for the WE Scare Hunger and the WE Create Change campaigns that will be run by students this Fall.

Check out the rest of the pictures on our Facebook Page!