OJCS Science

Sarah – A dollar makes a difference

https://www.instagram.com/dollar.makes.a.difference.2020/

https://monkeydoodle2000.wixsite.com/donate

Noam – Making a car using Arduino

Brandon – Make a new Gym Game

Jenny – Recyclophones

Yamaya – Eco Friendly Home

Hello, my name is Yamaya, and in class we have a project that allows us to research anything we’re passionate about. This is really cool! For genius hour I will be researching and designing an online and physical model of an economically friendly home. I will be learning about Home Design Websites, taking an interview with a family that I make up, and making them an eco friendly home that they will love and thrive in. This will be better for the environment and a healthier solution for the earth as well. At the end of this project, I will also have a physical cardboard model of their Eco- Home. I chose this project because I am very passionate about Home Design. I think that designing a structure for humans to live in is fascinating. I also care about the environment and I believe that homes should be made out of more natural materials. My project will be successful if I finish all of these steps on schedule. It will also be successful if more people actually start to use eco friendly materials to make a home.  I hope that you were inspired about my idea, let’s save the earth together! 

Maayan – The Perfect Horse Environment

For my genius hour project I chose to learn about horse farms in the world. Horses are beautiful and smart animals and I think they deserve to get an environment that would be the best for them. I also think that all the animals big or small need to be in a place that adjusted to them. My project will become a success when people start to design their pets’ environment  to be perfect for them. 

I learned about how climate can affect horses: the way they eat and the way they look. Climate also affects the way that people build their farms. I learned that it is very important to think about the horse’s comfort before the rider’s because if you will not do it the horse can be heart. I also learned about types of horses and the similarity and the difference between them.

I learned about the design of horse farms around the world.

>What Steps That I Took:

The steps that I took was that first I made a schedule for how I’m going to do this. After that I wrote my research planning and I started to work.
I started with the internet research, after that I interviewed my aunt Tal.

After that I did the book research and the bibliography.

> What Mistakes And Challenges I Faced:

The first challenge was the language.

The second challenge was to find good pictures and check that they are from the right place.

The third challenge was to set a time to talk with my aunt because she lives in Israel.

Making:

What I’m going to make:

1. Make a real small model.

In my farm:

In my farm I want A close arena with air conditioning for hot and cold days. I also want a big pasture for horses, an open arena and big stables. In addition I would like to have in my farm the best saddles and bridles types. I also want to create a training plan for the horses. I would like to have 10- 15 horses in my farm. On the farm I would also like to have hay and the tools to move it from place to place (tractors and more…). Also it is important to have in the farm some space to sit in for the guests.

How am I going to make it?  

I would take big cardboard for the base of the farm.

I would take something in a half circle shape and use the art elective technique to wrap it with tape and then color.

I would like to use skewers to build fences and more, I would use cardboard to build the walls. For saddles and bridles I would print picture, laminate them and stick them to the wall. For hay I would use corks and print the picture and wrap the corks. For horses I would use my little sister’s horses toys. For tractors I would use my little brother toys. And for sits I would use printed and laminated ones.  

Ruben – Charity Website

My Genius Hour project is making a website that helps you find good charities to donate to for climate change and pollution. I chose this because I think it is important that the problem of climate change starts to pass. On my website, there will be a description of why you should donate to that charity and what that charity stands for. For my research, I learned how to use Wix website creator. I thought this was important because if I want to make a website I have to learn how to. Another website I used for my research was how to make your website more popular. I thought that that was important if I want to learn how to get my website to have a lot of traffic on my website. The last website I used was a website that is like what I am going to make. I thought it was important to use this because it could give me inspiration when I am making my website.

Jacob – Making my own headphone case

Jordan – 3D printed Rubik’s Cube

 

The Grade 7 students showed off their media literacy, coding, and VR skills during their presentations to judges in the brand new Makerspace. They were tasked with researching a chosen ecosystem to find out what biotic and abiotic elements exist in the ecosystem and demonstrate the interactions between them. They had to further designate those elements into their roles of producers, consumers, and decomposers and then describe the transfer of energy in a food web showing how matter is cycled within the environment to promote sustainability.

The catch…  they had to build, design, and create all of this inside a virtual reality program called CoSpaces, using a visual block-based programming language called CoBlocks to tell the story of their ecosystem digitally. The videos below of the ecosystems themselves, and judges being guided through the experience illustrate the effort, willingness to try something new and risk taking our students are acquiring.

 

 

Goose Chase P.D. session challenge: use Spark Post to create a visual featuring a strategy line. Add it to your blog and then upload a pic for points. Check

Grade 7 students took part in a video chat with Amy Ziede this week to learn about her company, and how it all began when she was 12 years old.

Her organization, Creating Connected Communities started as part of her bat mitzvah project and was called Amy’s Holiday Party with a budget of only $400 to help underprivileged youth celebrate the holidays in December. The idea came to her after hearing a story of gifts being stolen from a youth shelter just before Christmas.

She chose to be an agent of change and her company today now engages over 800 volunteers and helps over 5000 underprivileged kids in Atlanta with a budget of over $650 000. The company trains Jewish teenagers to help communities in Atlanta with homelessness, foster care, refugees, and children living in poverty.

Students learned about Amy’s failures along the way, how she needed to come up with strategic plans to overcome these obstacles along the way to keep the company going and growing. The company had to start from scratch and start over 4 times before becoming the thriving, independent non-profit company it is today.

For more information or donate to Amy’s company, please visit her website

Welcome to Genius Hour! This is a project that encourages students to follow their passions as they develop their research and inquiry skills by learning about a topic of their choice, making, designing, or building a product based on their learning, and then presenting what they have learned and made.

While students will continue to practice the timeless skills of researching, testing, analyzing, and presenting to an audience like a traditional Science fair project, Genius Hour opens the door to amplify student learning. Along with the previously mentioned skills, students will also be practicing digital citizenship, heutagogy or self-directed learning as they work towards short and long term goals, media literacies, network literacies, and divergent thinking as they think creatively to generate innovative ideas, products, or solutions to problems that interest them.

As students make their own thinking visible by sharing their process, they will also be documenting for others to learn from, and practice metacognitive techniques as they document and reflect on their own process. The autonomy, and self-directed learning that genius hour encourages is student-centered, personalized, curiosity driven, and builds skills that are relevant in today’s rapidly changing world.  

Passion driven projects like genius hour provide learners the challenge to be creative, to design and build, to follow their interests, and to give their work a sense of purpose. Every teacher should strive to create students who are lifelong learners and Genius Hour is a big step in that direction!

What will YOU learn and create with the time?

Genius Hour Tracking Sheet

The Scientific Method

Writing a Bibliography

STEAM Tracking Sheet

Grade 6 Flipgrid Pitch Printout

Research and Learn Handout

Make, Create and Design Handout

TED Talk Presentation Handout

Judges Rubrics for Genius Hour, STEAM, & STEAM Innovation Projects

Grade 7 students learned about biotic and abiotic elements that affect ecosystems by creating self contained biospheres inside mason jars. They had to collaboratively research all materials they wanted to put in their jar to design their self contained ecosystems.

In an effort to move towards a creation over consumption learning environment, these students will continue to learn from their designs as we discuss the exchange of energy and matter within the biosphere.

Students learned how to source in-text citations properly, how to create bibliography citations using online aids like easybib, and then practiced their skills researching the history of the microwave.

They were tasked with taking notes in their own words, writing paragraphs that contain in-text citations, and creating a bibliography, all on the history of the microwave.