Electric Car Design and Build

Grades: 10 -12

Teachers: Tom Pitman

Subject: Electric Car

Project Name: Electric Car Design and Build

This update was written by Alison Flowerdew, parent, and Yarmouth Education Foundation board member. The grant for this opportunity was funded by YEF.

Hello Car Enthusiasts!

There is a lot of excitement in room 410 at YHS! That's because the Electric Car Design and Build class is busy assembling their electric car for their big race in May. Tom Pitman is in the driver's seat (for now, anyway....)!

This class is made up of Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors and today they were working on building the bumper hoop, the steering controls and the drive train (pictures enclosed). They are hoping to finish building the car by the end of March so they can spend the month of April practicing their driving skills. They want to be fully prepared to race their electric machine at the Lime Rock Motor Speedway in CT on May 18th. There are several different classes that compete at this race including, the novice class, the modified class, the super modified class, the solar power class etc. YHS will be competing in the novice class and will be driving against schools from up and down the east coast. YHS is one of only 2 high schools in Maine to compete in this race (the other being Noble High School). Go Clippers!

The race on May 18th is all about endurance. The goal is to see how many laps you can complete in one hour. During that hour, there has to be at least one pit stop. During the pit stop, the students will check their car and change drivers. The car must complete the 1 hour race using the same battery the entire time. Each car will have 2 drivers on the day of the race, but in case you are wondering, all the Yarmouth students will be able to drive the car in April during the test drive stage.

When this class was originally offered, there was an overwhelming response from the students. So much so, that YHS partially funded a second electric car! So, there will be two cars and two classes heading to CT on May 18th. Mr. Pitman often finds students working on the cars before and after class. The students have said they are so excited to finally put their math skills to use in the real world. The kit came with a 42 page instruction manual. Bring on the math!

Once the race is over, the students will break down the cars so that future classes can rebuild them for next year's race. Mr. Pitman's ultimate goal is to build a car and enter it in the solar powered class one day.

And the fun doesn't stop there. They are hoping to drive down Main Street during the Clam Festival parade, showing off their fancy electric cars. They are working on getting stickers for the cars to showcase their sponsors (YEF, Coastal Maine Hardware and Batteries Plus etc). Let's talk stickers....how big is our largest YEF sticker?? Tom said he'd like to put a YEF sticker front and center on one of the cars. If we don't have one big enough, Tom said he'd order a decal. It might be fun to have some YEF stickers for the helmets. Can we send some Tom's way?

Tom - Thank you so much for letting me come into your class room today. I can't wait to come back in April to take a picture of the final product! Thank you for bringing this grant to life for our high school students!

Celebrating Diversity: American Voices

Grades: 9-12

Teachers: Marita O'Neil and Jackie Brookes

Subject: English Language Arts and Social Studies

Project Name: Celebrating Diversity: American Voices 

This update was written by Alison Flowerdew, parent, and Yarmouth Education Foundation board member. The grant for this opportunity was funded by YEF.

Part One: Grades 11 and 12
David Mills is in the house!  Part one of Marita O'Neill and Jackie Brookes's grant, Celebrating Diversity:  American Voices -- Langston Hughes and Martin Luther King, came to life today at YHS!  David Mills performed as Langston Hughes in the YPAC this morning for the Junior & Senior class.  He was a one man show!  He started his performance reciting Hughes's famous poem called The Negro Speaks of Rivers, then continued reciting Hughes's poems and short stories for about an hour. Throughout his performance, he used many different voices: male, female, young, old, black & white.

After his presentation this morning, he conducted a workshop on Blues Poetry in two Senior AP Literature classes.  The class read a Hughes poem titled Midwinter Blues.  After the students read the poem out loud, they dissected each stanza, line by line, discussing setting, structure, form, tone, meaning, repetition and rhyme.  The students then wrote their own Blues poem using the formula they'd just learned.  In the background, Mr. Mills played a Chicago Blues song, while the students wrote their poem.  At the end of class, a couple of brave students read their poems out loud and I'm here to report that Ms. O'Neill has some terrific poets in her class!  I could tell the students really enjoyed the workshop, because they personally thanked Mr. Mills and shook his hand on the way out the door.  

What a bonus for the students to have their English teachers and History teachers join forces to create this experience for them.

Part TwoOne: Grades 8, 9 and 10:

Part two of the David Mills grant started off with a bang today!  The YPAC was filled to capacity with Freshman, Sophomores and 8th graders as David Mills transformed himself into Martin Luther King Jr.

It was another terrific one man show!  David Mills recited excerpts from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches and letters, including "I Have a Dream", "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and "If I had Sneezed".  In between the speeches, he performed interludes to bring the audience from one stage of King's life to another.  One of the interludes discussed how King felt when the 4 girls were killed in the Alabama church in 1963, just days after giving his "I Have a Dream" speech.  It was a powerful performance.

This afternoon I attended a workshop in Mrs. Ruthman's Sophomore Modern World History class.  It was a small class, but they knew their stuff!  Mr. Mills started off the class by giving the students some historical context around the letter that Dr. King wrote from his jail cell in 1963.  He talked about the bus boycott, which lasted over a year, the protests in Birmingham (which was nicknamed "Bombingham"), and why Dr. King was imprisoned.  When talking about Dr. King's letter from jail, Mr. Mills explained how Dr. King appealed to the reader on an emotional and intellectual level through his high rhetoric.  Mr. Mills described the letter as an "epistolary poem", which is a poem in the form of a letter.  After the class read the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", line by line, they discussed setting, repetition, meaning, parallel syntax, alliteration, paratactic syntax, hypophora, antithesis, anaphora, periodic sentences and metaphors.  Did you get all that?  The Sophomores did!  They were a smart bunch.

After the lesson on the literary devices found in Dr. King's letter, the students were asked to write their own

"epistolary poem" and were asked to include the elements they'd just learned from Dr. King's letter.  They were charged with writing about an experience they'd had in their lives where they'd been misunderstood, hurt or disrespected by someone with whom they were not able to respond to.  The students wrote and wrote and wrote.  Mrs. Ruthman's class turned into a writing machine. 

I know this grant was written for the high school, but I thought you might be interested in a couple of quotes from the 8th graders who attended the performance this morning.....

"I loved it!  The acting was amazing and I learned a lot of things about King's struggles that I wasn't awarde of.  I had no idea how vicious racism could be.  I was struck by the phone threat King received where they said they would kill his wife and daughter.  My big takeaway was that hatred is pointless"  This 8th grader said he was very moved and said this program was one of his favorites!

"It was awesome!  Mr. Mills did a great job with the miming.  I learned a lot about MLK".  

"I thought Mr. Mills was a really good actor and I enjoyed hearing him recite the "I have a Dream" speech.  I didn't know he was stabbed and I'd never heard the "If I had Sneezed" speech.  I loved the ending, when Mr. Mills talked about how Dr. King didn't want to be known for his Nobel Peace Prize or his many awards when he died, but for the impact he left on the world."

A special thank you to Caitlin for letting me join her class today and to Marita & Jackie for writing this grant and for bringing this experience to our students!  And finally, thank you for including the 8th graders.  It obviously had a big impact on them.  

Studying Oceanography with Google Expeditions

Grades: 9
Teachers: Sarah Hirschfeld and Mike Weiss
Subject: Physical Science
Project Name: Oceanography
Resources: Google Expeditions

Grade 9 students studying a new unit on Oceanography used the #googleexpeditions kit (donated by YEF) to learn about acidification in the ocean as well as "swimming" with some of the undersea creatures. Sarah Hirschfeld and Mike Weiss led the lessons and dressed appropriately in scuba gear.

More Pictures

YEF Funded Flight Club from YES visits YHS Spirit Week

Some of the YES Flight Club students traveled to YHS on the final day of Spirit Week to help record the all school events in the Gym.

Lego WeDo Exploration

Grades: 3
Teachers: Grade 3 Team, Cathy Wolinsky
Subjects: Science, Math
Project Name: Lego WeDo
Resources: Yarmouth Education Foundation funding for materials and kits

Third graders are exploring the Lego Education materials called "Lego WeDo"during a set of class periods. The Computer Lab provides an open setting for students to work in pairs to select one of twelve projects. Working together they follow the directions to put together the blocks to make the project. Then they connect it to a computer so that the motor or sensor can follow a program students made using the Lego WeDo software.

This video shows the students working on their projects.

Hour of Code

Grades: 1-12
Teachers: Morgan Cuthbert, Mike Arsenault, Cathy Wolinsky, and Alice Barr
Subject: All
Project Name: Hour of Code

Resources: Yarmouth Coding Resources and Code.org

Thank you to YEF for their support in helping find volunteers to come in to classrooms and talk about working in a computer science field.

All students in grades 1-12 had an opportunity to participate in an "hour of code" activity that was appropriate to their grade level. This is a slide show of some students at Rowe using iPads and YES using laptops with assistants from HMS:

This is the slide show from the High school activities

iPads in the music class? Let me count the ways!

Grades: 2-4
Teacher: Karen Renton
Subject: Yarmouth Elementary School Music
Project Name: iPads in the music class? Let me count the ways!

The iPad has made a powerful presence in the YES classroom this year. Let me tell you about a few of the ways we have been using them. iPads for music learning have come from the Yarmouth Education Foundation (YEF), the Yarmouth Music Boosters and we also borrow the set from the YES Computer Lab.

CLASSICAL KIDS APP – This app is a story telling app that incorporates historical facts about various composers in an interesting part fictional story format, complete with lots of GREAT classical music. We have heard about Tchaikovsky, Bach, and Mozart’s Magic Flute. I find that these stories have worked really well in chapter type format, and also allows me the luxury of resting my voice and being able to step back and watch students.

THE STATES APP – This is very simply a map of the United States and it’s growth since the 1700’s. I used this first when we were learning the 50 Nifty United States song in the 3rd grade. Recently I used this app in the 4th grade when we were learning about the history of African American spirituals. It helped to show the split between the North and the South and the Ohio river, referred to as the Jordan River in so many spirituals.

PIANO GAMES APP – We used this app in both the 3rd and 4th grade when we were learning about beat and tempo. It tied in beautifully with the 3rd graders who study Countries. This app is a game that helps you to learn to play the National Anthems from various countries.

PIANO FREE APP- This app is simply a piano keyboard, and worked really well with the 3rd graders who have been learning to read 3, 4 and 5 note songs on various pitched instruments.

EXPLAIN EVERYTHING APP – This app worked really well with the 4th graders when they were learning how to write BAG songs for the recorder. Not only was it helpful with students that were absent and missed the initial instructions, but this app also allows you to take pictures. I was able to take pictures of all of the songs and then we were able to play all of them as a class! Way cool!

iAUTOHARP – I haven’t had a chance to use this app yet, but I’m looking forward to using this with 4th graders. They will be able to play chords on this autoharp app to accompany others who are playing recorder.

iPad Pilot in YES Classrooms

Grades: 3 & 4

Teachers: Rosie Lenehan, Nicole Colfer & Kate Parkin

Subject: All

Project Name: iPad Pilot

It seems like every day there are conversations buzzing about how we can support learning with the single iPads that are in classrooms at YES. The teachers whose classrooms received the YEF grant iPads are using them connected to the projector for whole class instruction, for individual student use and as a center for a small groups of students. Additional teachers are using iPads that are their own.

• One class recorded the field trip to the State House in Augusta by creating aVoicethread using the mobile app. The camera on the iPad made taking pictures easy and then students added narration with audio or video clips to describe what they had learned. The kids seemed to enjoy how easy it was to build the slideshow and the iPad made it possible to do everything on one device. 

• Students are using the ShowMe app to write math procedures and record their descriptions of what they are doing or teachers are creating blog videos for explaining an algorithm.

• Dragon Dictation is helping some students with writing as they can speak into the iPad microphone and the app turns their voice into text. This text can be emailed to the teacher who can help the student continue the document.

Some other thoughts for exploration are spelling apps, voice recording of reading fluency, math practice and TumbleBooks online. Also, we added an "eprint" color laser printer this week in the YES Lab for printing directly from the iPads.

There is excitement in the air as we explore ways to use this "touch" device in ways that supplement and expand the technology access we offer to students at YES.

(cross posted at http://ipadsyes.blogspot.com/)

Grade 1 iPads

Grade: 1
Teacher: Heather Boutin
Subject: All
Project Name: iPads for Learning Pilot in First Grade

What incredibly exciting news!  I am sure that many of you have caught wind that our classroom now has some new technology - the first grade team was awarded a grant from the Yarmouth Education Foundation and each first grade classroom now has two iPads and the Yarmouth school department gave us new projectors and other equipment necessary to make the iPad a useful tool in the classroom.  This technology has really opened our classroom up to a whole new world of learning! 

As you can imagine, the students are ecstatic!  We are in the exploring phase of the iPads and we are learning how to successfully integrate them into our classrooms.  Students will be using the iPad in our listening center to read along with picture books and they will also be exposed to a couple of games that support our spelling instruction.  We have been using the iPad as a tool in math and handwriting lessons and I am very excited to find many more ways to incorporate the iPads!
 (cross posted at  http://boutin105.blogspot.com/2012/01/ipads.html)