Vikings and Videogames

Brandon Stewart English and Humanities, Experiential Learning

The Grade 12 Adventures in World History class traveled through time to take on the roles of Advisors, Seers, Seafarers, and Warlords to the Norse King, Harald Hadrata. Using the video game Civilization VI as an experiential medium, students helped expand the Norse trade networks, explore the western seas, settle new lands, and conquer Scotland and northern England. Through the game’s complex mechanics students learned about the Vikings as more than raiders, but also as traders, farmers, shipbuilders, poets, artisans, and clothmakers.

The ultimate goal of the game was exploring as far west as Vinland, and establishing the first European settlement in what would later become Newfoundland. Students dispelled myths about horned helmets, and learned of the notable contributions of key figures like Harald Finehair, Egil Skallagrimson, Eric the Red, and Harald Hadrata.

While most videogames can sometimes be a dubious learning tool, Civilization VI includes detailed historical information about the buildings, units, scientific discoveries, and cultural developments relevant to the period of study. Through their roles as Advisors, Seers, Seafarers, and Warlords, each group had a set of goals to work towards regarding trade, religious development, military conquest, pillaging resources, and scientific advancement. Each turn gave groups a variety of options to choose from, with many opportunities for student groups to find cooperation, conflict, and compromise. In the end, the students successfully developed trade routes to Denmark and Sweden, conquered the Scottish city of Dun Breatann, raided the Northumbrian capital of Eoferwic by land, pillaged the coasts of Wessex and Frankia, explored Iceland and Greenland, and sent a Eric the Red to explore and settle Vinland. The victorious cheers of the Viking students echoed over the waves.

Academy of Anacondas

MJ Duggan English and Humanities, Experiential Learning, Science and Math No Comments

Is there an everyday challenge that you experience and think to yourself “AGH, I wish someone would create a…to fix this”? For the last few months the middle schoolers have entered a Dragons Den competition (we’ve renamed it the Academy of Anaconda’s). Their task has been to think about these everyday problems and create a service or product that solves the problem. Eventually these students will be pitching their business to a panel of the Academy’s finest business Anacondas. The students have gone through many steps along the way. One of the first steps that the students went through was thinking about what makes a good business and what makes a good pitch. As a class we analyzed various pitches and businesses presented on Dragon’s Den and we had guest lecturers come to speak with the class about the challenges and triumphs of developing a business.

These guest lecturers included a founder of a Kombucha company and an Art Production company based out of Toronto. Once we had a better understanding of what makes a good business plan and pitch, the students were off to the races. They figured out what their business was going to be, who their niche audience was, and created models of their product or plans of their service. Throughout the process students have given and received a lot of feedback about their business. They have supported one anothers projects as well as received feedback from experts in their respective fields. You can see their mini-pitch along with some of the feedback they received here. We look forward to continuing to fine tune these business plans, developing websites for their businesses and ultimately preparing for the big day where students pitch their ideas to a panel of Anaconda’s.

– Dayna and MJ

Virtual ROM Tour

Brandon Stewart Beyond the Classroom, English and Humanities, Experiential Learning No Comments

This February, students in the Adventures in World History class united the realities of distance learning with the excitement of a trip to the Royal Ontario Museum. Students were introduced to a series of objects and specimens from around the world and across vast periods of time. From the time of dinosaurs, to Ancient Egypt, to New France, to the 19th Century Northwest Coast, to species at risk today, Academy students experienced the stories of some of the most popular objects in the Royal Ontario Museum’s collection of over 13,000,000 objects.

Our guide explained the significance of several objects from the collection, the history of their journey to the ROM’s collections, and the stories behind them. The object most closely connected to the lessons of the course was the Mummy of Djedmaatesankh. This wealthy, land owning woman lived during the New Kingdom period of Ancient Egypt. CAT scans of her remains show that she likely died of an infection in her jaw. The art that encases her includes inscriptions about her career as a chanter in the temple of Amun Ra. The clues that this object offers us about the role of women, the types of work, and the burial practices of Ancient Egypt are priceless.

Creating a Student Book Review Website

Katie Freeland English and Humanities, Technology No Comments

A good book puts us in conversation with a compelling character, offers a new perspective, takes us places. It can teach us new things about our world and ourselves, make a lasting impression on our lives, or help us get through a global pandemic and accompanying lockdowns. But when presented in school, reading can sometimes be treated like an onerous chore, a burdensome task that one needs to get through—and get past. Obviously, this is not usually how we want young people to view reading.

One of the ways to address this is to offer more choice — albeit curated — to student readers, and to help them learn to make informed choices about their reading, now and in the future. The “book club model,” as opposed to an exclusive focus on common class texts, is increasingly incorporated into high school English classrooms for this very reason.

In this year’s Grade English 9 English class, most students read two novels during the octomester, and they had opportunities to share and receive recommendations from their classmates. In journals, student-teacher conferences, and even with their families, students practiced important comprehension and thinking skills as they discussed and made connections to their reading. Then as a final assignment, they each contributed a multimedia book review to create a book review website for a peer audience. Writing and publishing their reviews, however, was not just about summarizing or sharing opinions on a book; it was about helping to create a community of readers, in which teenagers are empowered to read.

Choosing the right book may be a start, but students also learned to use a range of strategies, from using an audiobook to summarizing and asking questions, as they read. Reading can be hard, and there might even be parts of a favourite book that are hard—or boring, confusing, or otherwise unenjoyable. In our English course, readers were encouraged to prepare for this, and to acknowledge it in their reviews as needed. Reviewers have also included some advice, where relevant, about what those who are interested in a particular book might want to learn more about first. It is our hope that the reviews will be helpful to other students as they make their own choices.

The site is a work in progress, and will continue to be updated and expanded with more student reviews, created in different courses as well as purely out of interest. In the future it will hopefully also see the addition of various features like grade-level and interest filtering and feedback, request, and submission forms. But for now, the Grade 9 English book reviews have the spotlight.

YMCA Academy Student Book Review Website

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.