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Smiles, Gummy Bears, and Islands (Oct 1-5)

10/1/18

Monday, October 1st, was a very active day for Quest Humanities and Quest science. In Quest Humanities, we started a new geography project. This project was a creative way to make a geographic 3-D island out of paper. The highest points are the mountains, lowest points are the flat lands and intermediate points of the island were hills. This helped us express our creativity and knowledge for geography. In Quest Science, we took a quiz on our knowledge for the important lab tools and the metric system. After the quiz, we spent time expanding on the metric system, in a fun way. By doing a smile lab, we measured our smiles in centimeters and millimeters, to get familiar using the traditional metric system in science, and to see who has the biggest smile in the class. – Moses 

 

10/2/18

Tuesday, October 2nd, was an extension of what we did on Monday. In Quest Humanities, we focused on adding more detail to our islands. Creating cities, transportation ports/roads, recreation, and choosing the location of our islands. This added more depth to our islands and gave us the opportunity to express our uniqueness and creativity. In Quest Science, we stuck with the metric system and worked on a pretty lengthy packet. This helped our class a lot get used to using the metric system. – Moses 

 

10/3/18

In Quest Humanities on Wednesday, October 3rd, we started working on our Island narrative. We have an assignment that is due next week on Tuesday where we start to build a story about a day in the life of one of our island residents. The story is supposed to give details about the island, following up on the physical islands we created in class on Monday and Tuesday. The story is supposed to follow a person who lives on the island and show detail about their everyday life, 

including specific details about the island geography, culture and climate. It is supposed to help us think about the details of our island and put them into a story format. – Skyla

10/4/18

  Today in quest humanities we had time to work on our island narrative. The island narrative is making a character and making a story about everyday life on your island. You would also use the geography, culture, and climate to create the life of your character on your island.  You would have to write this story either from a child or adult perspective. You would also have to include the geographical features of your island in your story. Students have already created their islands and they are currently working on these stories – Nicholas

10/5/18    

In science today we got to finish our gummy bear lab. The gummy bear lab was when we measured the length, width, thickness, volume, mass, and density of the gummy bear. We then put the gummy bear in the water for a few hours overnight. Mrs. Bruvik then drained the water surrounding the gummy bears. We then took the gummy bear out of the cup and recorded the measurements of the length, width, thickness, volume, mass, and density. This practices our knowledge of the metric system that we are going to use all year in science. – Nicholas 

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This week in Quest: Global Warming, Storyboards, and Pipettes (Sept 24-28)

 

This week in Quest Humanities, our class has done multiple activities involving our writing prompts for the week, geography, vocabulary, and learning about coordinates and why they are important. In geography, we answered our 5th question for our log book which was, “If, as we like to say, ‘geography is the place where history happens’ then we should also recognize that ‘physical geography is the place where cultural geography happens.” -Muncel Chang. We analyzed and discussed this quote in class. I took many notes about what I didn’t include in my analysis from other students, which is one of the main focuses in Quest (Learning from your mistakes and asking for feedback from your peers). I really enjoyed responding to this quote as well as our next question for our log book which was #6. The quote was, “Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in the face of certain defeat.” I think that this was an important quote and also a very meaningful life-lesson. The quote is saying that people need to have perseverance when there is an obstacle in front of them, instead of quitting. Life throws many difficulties at people and they need to be ready, because life is not always perfect.

In geography, our class has been discussing how the geography where a place is located can affect their culture and the ways people live in that area. For example, if someone lived in an area with large mountains, people there would have appropriate clothing for the cold. Their religion can be based on the nature around them and they might use trees and stones to make  warm houses. So my conclusion from this is that geography can affect many things such as culture, which I agreed upon. We have also been learning about the different climate zones and latitude and longitude. I learned an interesting fact that surprised me which was people who live in the Tropic Climate Zone, have only two seasons which are wet and dry in parts of Africa and South America. The reason why our class is currently discussing latitude and longitude is because coordinates help people navigate when traveling and also for pilots to locate where planes should alight from. For Quest Humanities, we also had our first vocabulary unit and quiz this week. We have learned many vocab words from this unit and next week hopefully we will learn more vocabulary words for Unit 2. Overall, this was a very active week with assignments but thanks to our teachers, they gave us time to do some of our Quest work in class, so we had less to do at home. – Jayden Flores

This week, in Quest Science, we did many labs on Monday and Tuesday. The first lab that we did consisted of a balloon and a soda bottle. First, we had to place the balloon over the bottle where the cap would go. Second, we needed a container of hot water and another one to hold cold water. When we were done gathering the objects, we placed the bottle in the pot of hot water for two minutes and observed the balloon’s behavior. After the time was up, we put the bottle in the cold water. When we finished, we recorded our observations on a sheet of paper. The second lab included a rock and salt. We used a magnifying glass to get a closer look at the rock and salt. Next, we had to identify whether the rock or salt was a pure substance. We used our own definition of a pure substance to answer the question. Some people said a pure substance is something only made of one thing. Others said a pure substance is something that is natural and is not man-made. For the third lab, we had two different test tubes. One test tube contained lime water and the other contained regular water. We were instructed to exhale into both tubes for two minutes. After we exhaled, we recorded our observations on paper and repeated the test. We noticed that the lime water was really foggy when we started. After we finished exhaling, the lime water was clearer. The water was clear when we started but as we exhaled the water became foggier.

For the fourth lab, we were given a circular top that had a division down the middle. We had to measure a certain amount of salt on one side and the same amount of sand on the other. After measuring, we took the pipette, a tool used to measure small amounts of water, and used it to pour the same amount of water into both sides. We recorded our observations of what it looked like before and after the water was poured into it. Some people said that the sand was all spread out while the salt was all clumped together in chunks. – Isabella

In Quest Humanities, we also have been researching current event articles about various topics in today’s society. On Monday, we got to discuss the topics we have been researching is small groups of four. Some examples of topics we were discussing include Hurricane Florence, school shootings, flash floods, greenhouse emissions, plastic pollution, the Colin Kaepernick controversy, and drug use in Philadelphia. We had to write a short 3-5 sentence summary about the topic and sum up its main points. We wrote a longer 2-3 paragraph analysis about the main points, and if the author was biased or not, and if so what side did they take. We also had to annotate the article, and highlight the basis and the main points that the author was trying to make. One of my classmates thoughts and comments on this assignment was, “ Current events are important situations in life that people should take action in, know about, and understand. My experience with our current events project was a way for me to learn about the causes of greenhouse emissions, and now I know how important and dangerous Hurricane Florence is, and what we are doing to help.”

During this week, we continued analyzing, annotating, and highlighting main points in two short stories. One of the short stories we read is  “Thank You Ma’am.”The other short story is called “Old Man Under The Bridge.”

In class, we made a storyboard, picking one of the stories. We had to draw six different pictures, and write a short description telling whether each scene was part of the rising action, climax, or falling action. We also had to identify what or who was the protagonist and the antagonist in each story. A lesson that was learned by one of my classmates is “The two stories we read in class, Thank You Ma’am and Old Man Under The Bridge, have taught me that the antagonist and the protagonist don’t have to be the people. It could be the theme or the setting of the story, it doesn’t always have to be the characters.” – Brandon

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Marshmallows and Hemingway – Sept 17-21

9/17/18 Monday:

What are the traits of a successful student? What are the responsibilities of a student? What does good teaching look like to you? This was our writing prompt for our logbooks on Monday. This writing prompt helped both ourselves and our teachers be more successful this year, by allowing us to explain the ways we like to be taught. We now understand what we need to do to be successful students too. After our thoughtful writing time, we transitioned into our rubrics which we had written over the weekend. We separated into groups according to the topics on the rubric we thought we could have the most impact in. From there we put together all of our ideas to complete a rubric which will be our replacement for letter grades this year in Quest. The rubric will help us track our progress throughout the year, and we will be able to see how much we have grown, and where we need to continue to improve. Before our log questions, and before our rubrics, we were introduced to another new aspect of Quest. We received our first geography assignment and started to put together our geography portfolio. Our assignment was to read and annotate an article, and then to answer all of the 5 questions. From this article, we gathered information about Singapore and how its geography helped it become an economic superpower. -Haila

9/18/18 Tuesday:

How did geography help Singapore become an economic superpower? This was the question posed on Monday when we received the article. On Tuesday we broke up into small groups, each group was given one of the 5 questions asked in the article. Then we came together as a class, to discuss each groups’ findings. Through answering all of the questions, we were able to understand how Singapore became so rich which is through trade. Spending time on geography was only part of our Quest study on Tuesday. Since we have more than one period of Quest, we broke into sections for each period. One period we had geography and the other period, you had English. In our English aspect of Quest we read for meaning. We had discussed reading for meaning before in a previous logbook prompt, and we have been focusing on short stories. This time we read a story and really tried to pick it apart piece by piece. We read Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man at the Bridge. It was a confusing short story with a lot of symbolism, but when you read for meaning you do not always have to understand what the writer is saying, at first. While reading, you can highlight, and annotate. We have been focusing on annotating and highlighting, and have been practicing more and more because this helps readers understand the story. Old Man at the Bridge was more difficult to understand when we read it at first, but as a class, we were able to figure out what Hemingway was trying to say, and what the story really meant. -Haila

9/19/18 Wednesday:

Wednesday was Yom Kippur, and we were off from school.

9/20/18 Thursday:

On Thursday we had a full morning of Quest. We had a silent work time to check up on work and get ahead with our projects. This was our first time doing something like this, but everyone seemed to enjoy it. One of my classmates told me they, “Enjoyed Thursday a lot because it gave them a time to get organized and prepared for the next week.” We could work on one, or more, of five assignments written up on the board, this included: finish annotating Old Man at the Bridge, start our first vocabulary unit, writing our blog (if it was our week), a geography worksheet which was related to the work we did on Tuesday when we talked about the geography of Singapore, and our current events assignment. Thursday might have not been a day where the teachers presented a new lesson but we still learned new things and experienced different aspects of Quest.

During these past few weeks we were introduced to the idea of a current events assignment. Every two weeks, we will get a new current events assignment. These assignments will help us learn about the world we live in. Our assignment is an individual project where we find a news article. After finding an article on a topic that interests us, we annotate and highlight the article, to ensure that we understand the full meaning of the matter. We then summarize the article in 3-5 sentences and then answer a few prompt questions in 2-3 paragraphs. For example, why is this event significant and how does it connect to the work we are doing at MFS? This project is very interesting and important because we should all know what’s going on in the world around us. With our current events assignment, we will all be more informed, and have a better understanding of our world. -Ava      

9/21/18 Friday:

On Friday, we came together as a grade, and were given a challenge, called the marshmallow challenge. We were given 20 uncooked pieces of spaghetti, a meter of tape, a meter of string and a marshmallow. We had to build the tallest tower we could with these materials. It was difficult, because we had to follow certain guidelines, and if they were not followed, we would be disqualified. The materials were very flimsy, and it was hard to build a tall tower that stood strong and tall. Afterwards, we broke into our sections, and we debriefed. We talked about the project, and what was successful, and not successful. This experience was related to Quest, because Quest is a challenge, and we need to be able to overcome hardships, and follow guidelines, to accomplish our goals. After, we played a fun game to talk about communication, which is so important in the way we live today. Overall, it was a fun, constructive way to end the week, learning valuable skills for life.  -Jack D.

 

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Media Literacy and “Reading for Meaning” – Sept 11-14

This week in Quest we did many different activities for both Quest Science and Quest humanities. In Quest Humanities we all worked on a couple of different assignments as a class. Each student was required to write a response to a question each day in our own log books. One of the questions was, “What is the difference between reading for meaning compared to just simply reading?” As a class, we had a broad discussion about our answers after we all had answered the query. Along with this, we also had an assignment about media literacy. 

We discussed and answered both of these different assignments as a whole to see what other people thought about the same topic. In Quest Humanities, we also presented our summer projects in small groups. Our summer projects were scrapbooks that each person made about a book they read over the summer. It was interesting to see the amount of creativity shown and the differences between each project, even though there were many people with the same book.

In Quest science, one of the things we were assigned to bring in was a picture of us at any age. The reason we did this was to put our class’s photos on the board so we can all look like a whole. It was cool to see the different images that people brought in because we could all learn about our other classmate’s interests and hobbies. This week in Quest science was less about homework and projects or tests, but about learning more about each other to strengthen our relationships with each other.

Over the course of the week, we learned many different topics and ideas. As a class, we are hoping to continue to learn new topics and to strive to do well in Quest. – Coyle

This week in Quest humanities we focused on the English aspect of things. We brainstormed what the meaning of quest is and we came up with things such as it’s a mission you go on, you discover things, and you go on an adventure. We also talked about what “reading for meaning” means and how it’s different than just regularly reading for entertainment. We came up with things such as understanding your reading, being thoughtful, being present in your book, and reading “between the lines”. We also talked about media literacy and why it’s so important. We read a poem called “Thank you Ma’am” by Langston Hughes. In the beginning of the week we were talking about theme, plot, character and things like that also. We brainstormed as a class about what the story is about, protagonists, antagonists, and symbolism in the book. We annotated and highlighted in “Thank you ma’am” and a news story that we read about Serena Williams. We used it is an example of reading for meaning. – Remi

This week in Quest the sections X, Y, and Z worked on current events, reading for meaning, media literacy, science treasure hunt, student rubric and our summer projects. Throughout this week the teachers have kept us all occupied. The current events that we worked on was about the incident of Serena Williams confronting Carlos Ramos (chair umpire) for accusing her of cheating. This made Williams slam her racket on the floor. Billie Jean King agreed with her as to why she was so upset. This one of the things that Quest has done this week. – Makayla B.

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The First Week of School: 9/5/18 to 9/7/18

This week we had the first day of seventh grade! We also had the first day of our new Quest program. The Quest program features combined Science, English, and History to give students easier pathways to learn. The first day started with a short orientation like meeting for worship to get new and old students familiar with their grade. The Meeting For Worship was followed by a period of learning about Quest and asking questions in regards to Quest . We learned that Quest is meant to help students find connections between different subjects. Quest features a Current Events project that helps seventh graders tune in to the local news and what’s happening in the world. Quest has no letter grades therefore no MyMFS grade, which helps students get stress relief. The way we get feedback for Quest is through constructive criticism from our teachers and peers. The first day was a little hectic, but overall we are going to have a great year!  – Grace

 

9-12-2018/ Date of event: 9-6-2018

Last week we went to camp Dark Waters. We did many small group activities followed by a few full group activities that included the

Fun and Games at Dark Waters

whole seventh grade. We were grouped into our advisors for most of the activities so we could become closer with each other and learn more about the people in our advisory. We challenged each other by getting by obstacles that prevented us from completing the task we were given. We only got by this with trust and communication between each other that helped us learn about the true meaning of teamwork. We all learned that if you stop and listen to what everyone in the group has to say, you can accomplish the activity or goal you were struggling to complete. Some of the most difficult challenges would be the ones that required lifting everyone to get past a certain object without touching the ground. Everyone has to listen and trust everyone around them in order to complete the challenge we were assigned. I believe the Camp Dark Waters trip helped us to get to know some new faces in our advisor and our whole grade and helped everyone understand the true meaning of teamwork. The camp Dark Waters trip was very fun and a great way for  everyone to bond with new people. – Leah

 

On the last day of the first week of school was a normal school day. We had normal classes including Quest: Humanities and Quest: Science. In Quest: Humanities we have two teachers, Mr. Greenberg and Mr. Gornto, and in Quest: Science we have Mrs. Bruvik. In Quest: Science we will learn how to experiment, observe, predict, and the  engineering design process and in Quest: Humanities we will learn about literary analysis, geography literacy, and note taking, among many other things. Since this is the first year of Quest:, we and our teachers get to build the program. We will get some feedback about our work from our teachers and classmates and change it so our work can be the best it can. I hope other grades will do the Quest program because it will be an amazing experience and it will help them build a strong foundation as students.  – Daniel