MOST POPULAR VIDEOS

• 2:08 Week 10: Nov. 1-5

  This week's slideshow includes some images of: 6th graders exploring the phenomena of cold and warm water mixing, as well as fresh and salt water, to simulate the causes of ocean currents that drive climate; 7th graders presenting on their microscopy investigations comparing unicellular vs multicellular organisms' cells; and Decatur's JHS First Lego League after-school Robotics Teams assembling and coding their robots to get ready for competition in December.
  
  Thank you for checking in with us this week:)

  Uploaded Nov 06, 2021 by Gerard Kovach
• 2:19 Week 12: November 15 - 19

  This week's slideshow includes: 6th graders sharing out their new knowledge by adding to the "Learned" section of our KWL of on our Class Driving Questions Board; 6th graders sharing their conceptual understanding of the "Causes of Climate" up in front of our class; 8th graders creating their own flip-books to synthesize their understanding of a recent genetics study portrayed through a documentary film called, "The Human Family Tree", which explored how DNA samples taken from random people in a genealogy study in one of the most ethnically diverse locations of our world, the New York borough of Queens, reveals that all humans share 99.9% of DNA and that "Race" does not exist from a biological perspective; and 6th grade students gearing up for a fun interactive academic vocabulary and community-building activity known as "Talk-A-Mile-A-Minute". Thanks for checking in with us this week:)

  Uploaded Nov 20, 2021 by Gerard Kovach
• 1:34 Week 14 of 2022-23| 5th-8th Grade Science

  This week's slideshow highlights: students observing the transfer of energy between organisms and predator prey relationships in our classroom Lake Michigan Aquatic Ecosystem during feeding times; 6th grade students have been busy working in cooperative groups of engineers to design experiments backed up by their team's research to test variables that impact the effectiveness of "green roofs", which they learned can help combat problems such as the "Urban Heat Island Effect" and urban runoff that often leads to increased flooding of cities like Chicago; an 8th grade scientists setting up their STEM Fair Project experiment that they devised to investigate natural substances that can be used to fight bacteria on surfaces; and 5th grade class enjoying some hard-earned game time as they played cooperative board games and card games at the end of class on Friday to continue to strengthen our classroom community! Thank you for checking in with us this week!

  Uploaded Dec 03, 2022 by Gerard Kovach
• 1:16 Week 2 | Hand Self-Portraits 2021-22

  Junior High students spent the first couple of weeks reconnecting with each other in the classroom while reflecting on their individual values and identities through hand self-portraits.

  Uploaded Sep 09, 2021 by Marianne Sharping
• 00:18 3rd grade moving block lab Featured

  Students were given a series of materials and came up with creative ways to make wood blocks move to help them begin to think about force and motion that will be the focus of our new unit
  

  Uploaded Mar 12, 2023 by Ryan Cherry
• 00:25 4th Animal Vision Models Featured

  Students are working on their culminating project of creating a model of animal vision in their unit on vision and light

  Uploaded Dec 04, 2021 by Ryan Cherry
• 00:17 4th Science Simple Electrical Systems Featured

  Students created simple electrical systems with outputs of sound, light and motion energy.

  Uploaded Jan 22, 2022 by Ryan Cherry
• 00:28 5th Grade Museums

  5th graders curated museums of people, objects, and other artifacts that they felt were valuable to them. It turned out that family was one of the most valuable artifacts they could have in their personal museums.

  Uploaded Sep 09, 2022 by Marianne Sharping
• 1:01 5th Grade Point of View Creative Writing

  Students in 5th grade chose a scene from Amal Unbound to rewrite from a different point of view to help understand how the point of view of a story can greatly impact that the plot. After students rewrote their scene, students were able to walk around, read each other's writing and then leave feedback.

  Uploaded Mar 02, 2020 by Katherine Cooper
• 3:10 May 16-20,2022

  This week's slideshow highlights: 6th grade students collaboratively exploring Energy in their integrated Maker-Space + Science Inquiry Unit--this week they worked on and tested outside their redesigns of their solar cars and they also began investigating wind turbines' energy conversions by cooperatively assembling and collecting data on electrical energy output from their turbine models; 7th grade continued with their SEPUP Unit exploring Evolution with a couple of lab investigations where they learned about geologic drill cores, fossils, and trace fossils and inferences that can be drawn from those pieces of evidence; 8th grade students continued exploring their SEPUP Unit on "How can we make safer cars?" where they investigated how balanced and unbalanced forces impact a car's direction, speed, and acceleration; there are a couple of pics of 7th and 8th graders demonstrating the NGSS Science & Engineering Practices of "Obtaining, Evaluating, & Communicating Information", "Analyzing & Interpreting Data", and "Engaging in Argument from Evidence" by sharing their ideas from their Science Notebooks in front of their class; and lastly, there are a couple of pics of some students viewing microscopic soil mites collected from our class worm compost bin--if you look closely at the last pic you can even see an offspring mite on top of a parent mite. Thank you for checking in with us this week:)

  Uploaded May 21, 2022 by Gerard Kovach