This week in Quest, we continued to work on our joint Humanities and Science project, climate change. In Humanities, we each had to pick one country out of California, China, Colombia, Freiburg (Germany), New Orleans, Haiti, Nigeria, and Bangladesh. We were then put into groups of people with the same country, and given a resource with case studies for each country. We aimed to find answers to, “How is climate change affecting this country?” and “How is this country responding to climate change?” We discovered that many countries are highly impacted by the effects of climate change, and that everyone is contributing in their own way. This initiated our own case studies project. As the week ended, the entire grade picked a different country or city to learn about, and made their own case study. We worked with people in the same continents or with continents near us, such as Asia and Oceania. This was an interesting way to learn more about how different countries are dealing with climate change. It also helps us learn how we can protect the environment, ourselves.
Proofread by Haila and Alicia. Written by Maansi.
In addition, we read and analyzed two short stories: “The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane, and “To Build a Fire” by Jack London. These stories introduced us to the various elements that make up a story, such as richness of dimension, gravity, compression, etc. We were also introduced to the concept of theme, as well as the various types of conflicts, such as man vs man, man vs self, man vs technology, etc. We used these stories specifically as they featured the central theme of survival, and the man vs nature conflict. This allowed to compare, contrast, and analyze them. We filled out a Venn diagram, as seen here, to highlight the similarities and differences of the stories. We used this as preparation for an essay we are currently writing, which is due on Wednesday, January 30. This is our first literary analysis essay of this year, and our second essay overall. We will use this as a stepping stone for not only analysis of literature based on theme and conflict, but also as a start of the learning of essay writing skills. We also took the second part of our quiz on the countries of Africa. We had created a map two weeks prior that highlighted the physical and political features of Africa. We also took the test online, using a website called LizardPoint, for the first time. Alongside of this, we started a unit discussing the various different types of note taking styles. We each chose a New York Times article that relates to climate change, and learned different note-taking styles. We were placed into stations, and, depending on which station you were in, you would use a specific note-taking style accordingly. We used styles such as Cornell, Outline, Mind Mapping, annotations, etc. This exercise was used to help us discover which note taking style benefited us most, as well as how we, as individuals, can succeed in taking good quality notes.
Venn diagram comparing short stories.
Proofread by Tori. Written by Himanshu.
Quest: Science We have also talked a lot about the future and flying cars in science. We had spent the whole class having a discussion on the pros and cons on this new vehicle. For example, how would this affect traffic on the highways, especially if it is rush hour and everyone is in a hurry. This then got us to think about how this vehicle will help climate change, because all of the flying cars will be electrically powered. At first, I thought the idea of multiple cars in the air was crazy and very dangerous, but these cars are good for the environment. Also, if the car runs out of fuel or if the vehicles lose battery, then the class came to a conclusion that cab services like Uber should be able to use this new vehicle. This could be great since there wouldn’t be as much commotion in the air. We still listed some cons too, for example it could help out traffic and get people more quickly to their destination. This week in science, we also had the opportunity to get our new science textbooks and Mrs. Bruvik had assigned us to find something interesting in the book. This was a great time for us to explore the book and what great things people have invented, for example the science behind a fighter plane. After that we had to pick three pictures we were interested in and draw them as a cover page for quest science. Our study of our carbon footprint also carried over too this week and we finished up a worksheet.
Example of flying car from Quest : Science presentation
This previous week we were given two short story packets. These short stories were called, To Build a Fire and The Open Boat. Over the weekend, each section was assigned one of these short stories to read and annotate. Section Z was assigned To Build a Fire. On Monday in Mr. Gornto’s class, we discussed this story. It is about a man walking through the Yukon trails in Canada. The man later falls into a stream under the snow, but can not build a successful fire, so he freezes to death. We talked about how tragic the story is, and our class mostly agreed that To Build a Fire isn’t a sorrowful story. Some classmates thought it wasn’t unfortunate, and decided that is because the main character isn’t very likable. We also discussed other things such as theme, the turning point of the story, and the characters. The turning point of the story happened before it even started, which I found very interesting. It is when the man chooses to go on the hike in the Yukon trails, but the story begins when he is already on one of the Yukon trails. This discussion deepened our understanding of the story.
Tuesday:
On Tuesday we turned our focus over to climate change and global warming. We watched a short video describing the difference between climate and weather. This video cleared up any confusion about the difference between the two. We also received a Climate Change and Questions of Justice Packet. We started to read and annotate the first part of it. The first part of the packet gave us a sense of what climate change is. It also told us many things we can later build off of and expand our ideas about climate change on.
Wednesday:
On Wednesday in class, we went over our annotations in The Open Boat, a story about four people on a boat trying to find their way to land and safety. Since we had already read To Build a Fire, we compared the two stories. One story was about how the choices you make affect your survival, while the other one was about how fate determines your survival. This thought never came to my mind before, but it has helped me view the stories differently.
Thursday:
On Thursday we transitioned back into learning about climate change. Everyone in the class got an article on salmon, mangroves, corn, cod, lobster, honey bees, or sugar maples. After reading these articles, we answered different questions about our topics. There are two main questions that everyone had to answer including: how might climate change affect this organism, and why does this matter to people? Following this assignment, I could see how if one thing is concerned, then many more jobs would be affected. These organisms have a significant impact on their ecosystem.
Friday:
In Mr. Gornto’s class on Friday, we had the whole period to work on our upcoming essay for comparing To Build a Fire and The Open Boat. At the start of class, Mr. Gornto explained our assignment and gave us a Venn diagram. The Venn diagram was a helpful tool to use as an organizer. It assisted us in getting our thoughts straight so we would have an easier time writing our essay.
Edited by: Dinah,Haila and Alicia
Monday: This past week, we have learned about Africa and Climate Change. We talked about climate change and how it affects everyday people. We also spoke about Africa and the 2 different types of map projections that are most commonly used, the Mercator and the Peters projections. Our class read through and annotated a packet about understanding climate change and the causes and effects of it. We also learned the difference between climate and weather. Weather ~ the day to day changes of the forecast; Climate ~ something that happens over a period of time (weather patterns).
Tuesday: On Tuesday, we started to go over what climate justice meant and how it affects people from all over the world and not just the countries that people live in. Climate Justice is the action of framing global warming as an ethical and political issue, rather than one that is purely environmental or physical in nature.
Wednesday: On Wednesday, we talked more about the two different types of maps the Mercator and the Peters projection. We discussed the strengths and weakness of each projection; specifically, which countries or continents seemed to change the most between the two versions. Also, we talked about when the Mercator map was made that Mr. Mercator made all of the more affluent countries bigger such as the United States, Britain, Russia. He made the continent of Europe the center of the map. Whereas, Mr. Peters made the poorer countries and continents more to scale even though it looks stretched out.
Thursday: On Thursday, we turned back to climate change, and we all had to pick an article about mangroves, salmon, honey bees, corn, cod, lobster, or sugar maple trees. After we read the article, our groups had to create a mini presentation on how climate change will affect the life form and why is this life form essential to humans. I learned that if one of these organisms had become extinct, that there would be an overpopulation of another animal. This would lead to the ecosystem being an unbalanced disarray.
Friday: Lastly, on Friday, we continued our learning on climate change; however, today we changed our focus on climate justice, and we learned about the world and how climate change affects every country in the world. I found this very interesting because it made our class realize how people in poorer countries have very little control and how much people in the US and other affluent countries take for granted. We also took a test on the countries of north and west of Africa. Some of the countries that we were tested on were Sierra Leone, Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso, etc.
This week, we learned about how climate change and climate justice affect the world around us. Also, we studied in depth, the geography of the African continent in conjunction with various map projections.
Edited by: Dinah, Alicia, Halia,
Throughout the past week in Quest Science we were in a Climate Change Unit learning about the effects of it and what is happening on the influence in the world. In Quest Science we have watched videos and done specific experiments and labs that reflect on what we have learned about Climate Change. One of the best experiments that we did in Quest Science was a lab where we split into groups of two people, and had two jars. One jar was the Control jar, while the other was an Experiment jar. Each jar consisted of red cabbage juice, that was freshly made by our teacher in the morning. Each group member was to blow into a straw into the Experiment jar, just touching the surface of the liquid inside for two minutes, or until we saw a difference in color. The change in color that we were looking for could be either pink or a deep turquoise. A more pinkish color represented the cabbage juice or pH level to become more acidic, while if it became more turquoise, it would be more basic. These result last were measured on a pH scale. The results that everyone should have had were a pinkish color of cabbage juice (pH). After the lab was completed, we were to answer smaller questions that gave a big answer to our main focus question which was, “How Does Increased Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Burning Fossil Fuels Change the pH of Oceans.” We left class that day with many lingering questions in our head about Climate Change.
In Quest Humanities, we were studying the continents, and had an interesting conversation about how many continents there really are. We came up with the answer of either 5, 6, or 7 continents was correct. We recently took a map quiz on about half of the map of Africa, as it was split into two parts, on Lizard Point. Another activity we did in quest Humanities was study the different, yet main two maps that we use, which were the Mercator, and Peters maps. We watched short videos on the maps, and took notes about the difference between them.
While we are still in the unit of Climate Change, in Quest we have talked about the importance of Climate change and the harms of it to animal life. We had a mini activity where we worked in groups, read an article about a specific animal, and the effect of Climate Change in the animal, answered a few questions, and finally gave a mini presentation to the class, summarizing your information. We were also learning about Climate Justice, and for this lesson, we had to read and annotate and long article on Climate Justice, and end with a log response about Climate Justice and its effects. After we learned about Climate Justice the final thing that we did was begin to draw, and possibly finish, a chart or diagram on our final research on Climate Change and what it affects, how, and the consequences of its effects, and how it is ruining our earth. Another activity that we did in Quest Science was a Carbon Footprint Lab! We did this to see how much each of us is distributing CO2 everyday, or the total amount of greenhouse gases produced to directly and indirectly support human activities, usually expressed in equivalent tons of carbon dioxide. We also did a graphing activity where we made line graphs about how much Co2 was in the atmosphere and the temperature. We also read articles on Corals and Chemistry and Ocean Acidification, which was relevant and important because corals are actually animals/invertebrates that serve as homes and ecosystems for marine life. They are being destroyed by pollution, climate change, and infected with chemicals and climate change.
Monday was our first day working on our week one climate change project. During this unit, we will be working for six weeks to learn about climate change. Monday was not a normal day in Quest, because we did not report to our normal classrooms. Instead, we were put into groups of four people from different sections, and reported to the classroom of a Quest advisor. Each group had chosen a question to investigate relating to climate change. The groups then were tasked with making a presentation for the entire grade that answers this question. The groups each began to create a presentation to answer the inquiry. They were required to find a way to answer the question that they were given, and support their answer with evidence from trustworthy sources, images, and graphs.
Groups working on their presentations. Date: 1/7/2019
Tuesday, January 8, 2019:
On Tuesday we were split up by sections instead of our climate change project groups. In Mr. Greenberg’s room we talked about how people view Africa versus what Africa really is. We later were given our Africa maps, which we will have two quizzes on in the coming weeks. In Mrs. Bruvik’s room we had a substitute. We were asked to read a article about climate change and then afterwards we had to answer six questions about the article we had just read. In Mr. Gornto’s room we started off by talking about the use of commas, then continued on to do a worksheet about commas. We used the remainder of our time to work on a few pages in our grammar book. The grammar book pages had us work on using the correct ending punctuation and when or when not to have a comma in the sentences. Overall, Tuesday had been a day with a great amount of material to learn.
Wednesday, January 9, 2019:
On Wednesday, we were divided into our climate change groups again. We stayed in the rooms where we were on Monday. Today, we finished making our presentations, and some groups began to practice presenting. Groups went into vacant classrooms, and presented to each other, or to another group. Most groups made changes to their presentations based on peer feedback. Our classmates then shared their final presentations with Mrs. Bruvik, Mr. Greenberg, and Mr. Gornto.
Thursday, January 9, 2019:
On Thursday, each class was finishing up their climate change research and presentations. In these classes with slit up topics, were working hard to put finishing touches on their presentation, that will be presented on Friday in the morning. For the groups that were finished and confident with their work, got to practice presenting in front of peers to get feedback as help for improvement. The sections were split up by topics that were related to each other. This was a good way for organization.
Friday, January 11, 2019:
Friday was the day of our presentations. At 8:00 AM, we entered the D’Olier Room to begin. First, we were given papers to record our takeaways from each presentation. A takeaway is not a piece of feedback, rather something that you learned. Next, each group presented. Every piece was well thought out, and was grounded with evidence from reliable sources. After the presenters completed the presentation, one or more groups gave them constructive feedback on their work. Each person in the audience recorded two takeaways. At the end, we were given a worksheet that was used to see our reflections on our presentation, and other people’s. This assignment taught everyone in the 7th Grade a lot about Climate Change. It was also impressive to see how well each group delivered their presentations.
Today all of the seventh grade met in the auditorium to find out about our next unit. The project that was given out was about global warming and climate change. Following the description of the project we watched a video from Netflix (Bill Nye Saves the World) and the many effects it has on people and things around us. The global warming project/unit will take up to 6 weeks but the first part is due next week. So many people had questions about global warming and the effects. Later the 7th grade went into groups of 4 or 5 and wrote questions about global warming for the whole group to discuss. Later we all hand picked the most valuable question to them so you and a couple of other students will do more research on that question. What do you think about global warming? Is this a big issue to you?
-Aaron
Friday-1/4/19
In Quest: Humanities, 7th graders in all sections (in Mr. Greenberg’s Class) watched videos explaining climate change, and how it is affecting our world today. Then we were asked to write down notes about some effects of climate change like, ice sheets melting, sea level rising, etc.
In Mr. Gornto’s class we read a short story by Liam O’Flaherty called “ The Wave”. We were asked to read, take notes, and annotate. This short story was about how water is very powerful and how it erodes cliffs, beaches, and other rock formations. In some ways this is connected to our global warming unit we are doing in Quest. Erosion is the process when the surface of the Earth gets worn down by water. This can be caused by the rising of the oceans or severe rainfall. The idea is to examine how various protagonists and antagonists could be forces of nature rather than people.
-Laurence
Quest Science:
In Quest: Science, 7th graders from Section X worked on finishing their Marble Run. The students had to create a free-standing marble run using a paper bag, tape, popsicle sticks, flashcards, and a toilet paper roll (just the cardboard). They had to ask themselves, “What is the problem?” Then they had to imagine and plan out a solution. Finally, they had to create and improve their solution. This is the engineering design process. In past and future projects, students must look toward this process while coming up with a solution.
-Sonia
Section Y today redid their line graphs in preparation for our climate change unit. We are going to be keeping track of the local temperature at the MFS weather station (which is located between the regular building and Hartman Hall). The data will be stored in line graph form. Last but not least we are coloring kindness posters to put throughout the school
-Laurence Toncich-Mandel
Here are Some Quotes from Winter Break and From our Short School Week
12/19/18 – 1/2/19
From December 19, 2018, to January 2, 2019, students were on winter break. Here is what some students said about what they did during winter break:
“I went to my grandparents’ house and spent time with my family.”
“I went to visit my family in Boston.”
“I went to my grandparents’ house in Naples, Florida.”
