Orange T-Shirt Day
Following an introductory presentation in the Christians in Society class, a group of students felt moved to select this focus for their PBL social justice project. Orange T-Shirt Day is a national day chosen to remember those who attended residential schools and for those who also lost their lives in this system in Canada.
Students focused their time and energy in the early weeks of school to provide our HD school community with a day to remember these individuals. They published educational posters focusing on different Six Nation indigenous neighbours who spent part of their childhood in a residential school and added QR codes to provide the entire story for students to read.
See also: Every Child Matters
The students silk-screened shirts for their team to be worn at our school assembly on Friday, Sept. 27th and to wear on September 30th – Orange Shirt Day. At the outdoor fall assembly, these students shared the meaning of Orange Shirt Day which stems from the experience Phyllis Webstad had entering a residential school in BC. This day focuses on how “Every Child Matters” and that the political decisions our country makes for individuals should be focused on building community versus tearing it apart.
This team baked mini-cupcakes for the entire school and handed out information cards about the day to bring awareness to this social justice issue. Thanks to Ruth Ann, Leah, Julie, and Leah drawing attention to this issue and providing an opportunity to share what you have learned with the entire school.
Kinesiology
Students in Introductory Kinesiology utilized both virtual reality and augmented reality during a recent anatomy lab. The use of this technology assists in gaining an accurate understanding of the form and function of the body’s skeletal and muscular systems. Students expressed that using this technology brought the body systems to “life” in a way that pictures or diagrams fail to.
Christians in Society
The Christians in Society Class volunteered their time and energy at the Ontario Gleaners. This group of 30 students was asked to “come back every day” and praised for their “intuitive approach, hard work and positive energy” that they brought to this global outreach mission.
As a collective group, they helped package dry vegetable mixes that are used for soups, stuffings, and casseroles. The vision of this trip is to provide an awareness of the global need for food and to learn how to produce that used to be discarded because it was deemed as ‘seconds’ is now been fully utilized.
The grade 9 classes have been studying sustainable ecosystems and the detrimental effect that invasive species have on them. Cootes Paradise is a beautiful wetland in our city that has been badly damaged by sewage overflow and invasive species.
- “I found it cool doing the experiments to test the water and seeing them sort the fish.” – Ashley
- “It’s cool what they are doing there.” – Evan
- “It’s interesting to see the time and money that they are using to preserve our environment.” – Caleb
- “Seeing the fish was fascinating” – Sarah
- “I learned a lot” – Meredith
- “It’s pretty cool, actually. I liked watching the actual process of the fishway to understand how it works.”- Amy
Advanced Functions
Today is the advanced function class, students were exposed to something they have never seen before: the matrices. Students learned about some history and background of the matrices, basic operations of matrice, and used their skills to code their own messages for others to decode. Can you decode them and see the messages?
