What’s Cooking?

Katie Clay Community, Experiential Learning, Healthy Living No Comments

Cooking Club started off the new year by making simple, but satisfying smoothies. After all the holiday treats and big meals it was nice to make something packed full of healthy fruits and vegetables. As this was a fairly easy snack to prepare we had lots of time to catch up on our winter break activities and also discuss what recipes to make in the coming weeks. We have a long list of interesting ideas to choose from with some old favourites and new challenges.

Over the last few weeks we have made some really tasty meals. We created loaded nachos,
homemade pizzas, and stir-fries. Each student used their favourite ingredients to customize the meal for themselves and their families. These versatile recipes are great to meet the diverse tastes of our students and also allows them to use whatever they have on hand, which is a good skill and especially important during the pandemic.

We hope to be able to cook together in person once again, but for now our virtual Cooking Club gives us the opportunity to share our love of food with each other and socialize with our friends.

Media Literacy in the Age of Misinformation

Katie Freeland English and Humanities No Comments

“Fake news” is a phrase that has been thrown around over the last few years, but what role does it play in the lives of today’s students? And what are they learning about questionable “news,” from misleading headlines to hoaxes to blatant disinformation, and everything in between?

Students in Grade 9 English have been asked to consider these questions, and more, as they learn about news from a few different angles — how news writing is structured and presented, how to differentiate between fact and opinion in what we read and write, and how to evaluate the reliability and credibility of information coming from different sources. As teachers, we are often asking ourselves how we can best teach about media and information literacy so that students develop as not just readers and writers, but also responsible media consumers, media creators, and citizens. But the proliferation of misinformation over recent years continues to present challenges.

All students agreed that misleading news is a problem that can have terrible consequences in the real world, but not all shared the same opinion on whether or not enough was being taught in schools about “fake news” and other kinds of misleading information in the media. Most, however, took the position that the Ontario curriculum should include more on the subject. Now with the pace of an octomester, opportunities to link different skills and concepts together must be seized. And so, this issue provided the topic for a persuasive writing task the class is currently engaged in — writing to the Ministry of Education to let their views be known in a letter, one in which they must express a supported opinion on the matter, but also one that we hope may have other, more positive, consequences of its own.

Do you think that young people are learning enough about false and misleading news? What can we all do to support them in developing the skills they will need to responsibly and capably navigate an ever-changing landscape of messages and information?

Living Things Big and Small

John Cuthbert Experiential Learning, Science and Math No Comments

Middle school students at the Academy have started 2021 learning about life sciences. Students learned about the qualities that we use to define what is living and explored how certain living things interact within ecosystems.

Since then, they have honed in on the basic unit of life, the cell! They investigated tissues using virtual microscopes and discovered variations between the structures found in plant and animal cells. Next, they demonstrated their learning by making cell models, using a legend and written descriptions to highlight functions and interactions between the structures making up these microscopic marvels.

Moving forward, they’ll continue to build on their understanding of cell processes and learn how cells can work together to form functioning tissues, organs and systems in multicellular organisms.

Fostering Relationships in a Pandemic

Brydie Smith Beyond the Classroom, Community No Comments

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed many challenges for us over the last 10 months, with one of the most significant challenges being our limited social interactions and lost time with loved ones. This has had a ripple effect into our school, with students not being able to fully embrace the social components of being in the classroom. As a school, we try to support all aspects of student wellbeing, including their social health, which is why we have taken the extra step to create some (safe) opportunities to socialize!

Before the winter break, our Student Life Counsellor, Jamie, and our Educational Assistant, Brydie, played a friendly – socially distanced and masked – game of Basketball with two of our highschoolers. There was a lot at stake; the losers had to bake for the winners. Needless to say, Jamie and Brydie spent the following weekend baking! Unfortunately the stay-at-home order meant that they couldn’t plan anymore basketball games in the foreseeable future…but it gives them a chance to practice for the next one!

Since moving online after the break, our Middle Schoolers have expressed their struggles with the switching back to virtual learning, after being on-site and in-person since September 2020. Acknowledging this drastic switch and second loss of social interaction, we started a weekly after school “Hangout” where the Middle School students can have some supervised non-academic fun! Our first week was spent creating communal rules to ensure a safe space, then starting our comic books by designing our avatars and making a 3-page comic on what we would be doing if we had unlimited freedom! Our participants didn’t hesitate to get creative, become the President of the United States, and soar into space!

With the end of Octo 4 fast approaching and the extended remote learning announcement, we look forward to having something fun planned for the High Schoolers to interact with one another soon… watch this space!

When Life Throws you Lemons, Sell Them

Luka Ilic English and Humanities, Experiential Learning No Comments

The Marketing class has been exploring and learning about ten important components of marketing. This week, students took on the challenge of running a lemonade stand in an online game. Through the game, they were able to learn about the importance of research, product development, pricing, sales and inventory management. They had complete control over pricing, quality, inventory and supplies, and their goal was to make as much money as possible over a 14 day period. It’s not as easy as it sounds though, as students needed to account for the weather, customer satisfaction and feedback, popularity, money, and inventory.

Although some students were more successful than others, everyone had fun trying to find the perfect balance between all the different factors at play. In addition, the game did well to demonstrate that marketing is more than just about sales and advertising. Soon enough, students will take these newly learned skills to put together a marketing plan of their own.