Visiting the Royal Winter Fair

YMCA Academy Beyond the Classroom, Community, Experiential Learning No Comments

Four of the YMCA Academy’s classes made a trip down to the annual Royal Winter Fair on November 11th, stopping along the way to observe a minute of silence in the sun.

Once there, we saw horses practicing their jumps, spent some time feeding (and of course petting) the animals in the petting zoo, saw some incredibly large vegetables grown by some incredible farmers, and watched the awesome Super Dogs show.

Students had the opportunity to meet some of the talented canines, and to work on a variety of assignments including taking photos of all the sights they were experiencing, planning what they would write, and discussing food nutrition and the positive aspects of locally grown produce.

The trip has become a much enjoyed annual tradition, and this year was another great one.

Annual Cedar Glen Trip

Zareh Demirdji Community, Environmental Stewardship, Experiential Learning, YMCA of Greater Toronto No Comments

October is that time of year where the leaves turn red, orange, and yellow, presenting us with a breathtaking display of the best of nature. It is also the time of year where Academy staff and students gear up for one of the year’s most anticipated and loved events, our annual trip to Cedar Glen. Whereas most years our pilgrimage to Cedar Glen is around the middle of October, this year’s excursion was at the end of the month, the latest we have ever gone. As such, we experienced a much colder experience this time around.

For the second year in a row, in lieu of our tree planting as our school’s means of environmental stewardship we spent the first day at Cedar Glen working their on site farm. This year’s farm was much more advanced than last years, which gave our staff and students the opportunity to try their hands at many new farming activities. On our second day the weather decided to test us and turned cold, overcast and gave us intermittent rain.

Not to be intimidated by cold or precipitation, more than half of the staff and students chose to be outside for programming, while the remaining minority settled for warmth and board games indoors. Our last day was one with a bright blue sky and beautiful weather (which we wished would have made an appearance the day before) and as always, a bit of excitement about going home to our own beds, as well as sadness for having to leave a place that we love visiting. We impatiently wait until our next year’s visit.

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

Album One | Album Two | Album Three

Visiting the Ontario College Fair

Zareh Demirdji Beyond the Classroom, Experiential Learning No Comments

On October 18th, the Academy’s senior grade eleven and twelve students made their yearly pilgrimage to the Ontario College Fair. The students journeyed from booth to booth with the opportunity to ask questions to current college students and professors. The visit was a first for the grade eleven students. This first visit is meant to get them prepared and thinking about what they may like to study and which schools they may want to study at a year in advance of their actual application process. For the grade twelve students, it was their second visit, this time focusing in on the schools and programs they have already chosen for their applications.

The Elephant Toothpaste Lab

Zareh Demirdji Experiential Learning, Science and Math No Comments

Chemical reactions occur all the time around us. Whether it is a cookie baking in the oven or a battery producing electricity, chemical reactions drive the world around us whether we notice them or not. There are eight types of chemical reactions, four of which we focus on in grade 10 chemistry. These reactions include:

  1. synthesis
  2. decomposition
  3. single displacement
  4. double displacement

Learning about the chemical formulas that represent chemical reactions although important, is no where near as exciting as seeing what these chemical reactions look like in real life. In order to help students see past the equations, we can carry out slightly scaled up chemical reactions in the classroom to bring them to life. One such reaction that is a perennial favourite is the “Elephant Toothpaste” reaction, so called because the end product looks like a large tube of toothpaste being squeezed out of a bottle large enough to clean an elephant’s teeth.

The reaction is an example of a decomposition reaction. Hydrogen peroxide is mixed with some dish soap (and food colouring for effect) and then mixed with either potassium iodide or baker’s yeast mixed with warm water. The hydrogen peroxide decomposes into water and oxygen. With the aid of the potassium iodide or baker’s yeast as catalysts to speed up the reaction, the oxygen enters the soap bubbles causing the substance to quickly expand out of its container and overflow like squished toothpaste all over the table. The result is an exited room of students and a happy science teacher.

Another demonstration of a chemical reaction that is very captivating is the dehydration of sugar by sulphuric acid. In this demonstration, sulphuric acid is added to plain granulated sugar. Sulphuric acid being a dehydrating agent strips the sugar molecules of water leaving behind carbon. The outcome looks like a spectacular display of what looks like a giant snake appearing out of no where and which is quite the spectacle to witness.

Check out more photos from this event on our Facebook page!

Trek Talks: Bridging Science and the Arts

Zareh Demirdji Arts, Beyond the Classroom, Experiential Learning, Science and Math, Technology No Comments

This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the debut of Star Trek, a show that has captured the imagination of its fans, inspired the creation of many technologies, and most importantly, given viewers an encouraging vision of the future where the human race has learned to work with one another in a utopian society. In honour of this milestone, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Lightbox Theatre has put together a series of events to celebrate the occasion.

One such event is Trek Talks: Bridging Science and the Arts. This is a panel style discussion on Star Trek and education which includes a physician (Sonny Kohli) a Canadian astronaut (Jeremy Hansen) and Royal Ontario Museum Managing Director (Marianne Mader). The panel will discuss how science can inspire the arts and how the art in turn can inspire science. The panel will also discuss how film and television projects like Star Trek inspire careers in science, space, technology, math, arts, and engineering.

Since Star Trek embodies so much science, it was (as Mr. Spock would say) a logical conclusion to take the grade 10 science class to partake in this discussion. And so on star date 10.13.16, the grade 10 science class, along with their Captain and the Academy’s Technical Analyst officer, boldly navigated their way to the TIFF Lightbox Theatre at warp speed, and listened in awe to the stories and anecdotes of the presenters.

After being introduced to the panel, the audience was shown a video montage of a variety of scenes from the various Star Trek television shows that visually demonstrated the science and art themes of the event. The panel discussed and explored a variety of questions and topics audience which included:

  • How Star Trek influenced their career path
  • What aspects of Star Trek have allowed its legacy to last for 50 years?
  • The importance of scientific accuracy in television shows
  • The ethics of scientific progress
  • The advantages of a scientifically literate society
  • Star Trek’s influence on the development of technology
  • The importance of risk taking in scientific exploration

After listening to the panel members’ personal and enthusiastic answers, the audience were granted an opportunity to ask questions to the panel. Three of our student’s posed their questions to the panel and listened with curiosity to the answers. After the event concluded, we had the honour of taking a group photograph with one of the panel members, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

Check out more photos from this event on our Facebook page!

To watch the entire panel discussion see below! (To skip to our student questions, forward to time index 1 hour, 31 minutes)