Plate Tectonics in Google Earth

What better way to learn about convergent, divergent, and transform boundaries than by looking at images in Google Earth?  Mrs. DeLaGarza's classes explored how to navigate Google Earth, how to measure and how to create their very own placemark in Google Earth.  When they were finished they started looking at a Google Earth file that showed the various types of plate boundaries and answered some questions about land features that were near all of the different types of plate boundaries.  To quote Ms. DeLaGarza, "I could use Google Earth to teach this entire unit on Plate Tectonics!"

DMS Robotics Takes Home Teamwork Trophy

This weekend, Westlake High School hosted the Central Texas Invitational First Lego League Tournament where Deerpark's robotics team, The Epic Rainbow Bosses competed among sixty other teams in robot design and programming, presenting a research project, core values, and a point value on how well their robot autonomously completed various missions that had to do with the theme, Senior Solutions.  

This video is a celebration of our entire season.  

Students created the song "I'm Epic and I know It" 

as a parody and all other music is used with permission from BMI

The Epic Rainbow Bosses researched Macular Degeneration and through interviews with Optometrists, community members, grandparents, research in books, videos and the web, came up with a solution to prevent seniors from getting age related Macular Degeneration.  
The robotics team shined and were considered for an overall award, innovation, programming, gracious professionalism, teamwork, inspiration, research, and presentation award.   There were only two awards that they were not considered for in each of their judging rooms!  In the end, they brought home the Teamwork trophy that we will proudly display in a trophy case on campus.  

The day before the tournament  DMS teachers showcased their Epic Rainbow Team Spirit by wearing tie dye and rainbow shirts!

Townsend's Class Goes SMART

Ms. Townsend's class recently received a Smart Interactive board, and she did not waste any time getting her kids out of their seats and interacting with this new technology.  Ms. Townsend had her students play a game where they threw a ball at the Smart Interactive Board.  When the ball hit the board, a random word would pop up and the students would have to decide if that word was a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb.  They are working on their sentence structure and improving their writing and applied the skills from the game into their own writing. 

Digital Creativity in Texas History

Students in Ms. Forbes, Mr. Richardson, and Mr. Waddell's classes were asked to do an Early Statehood Jigsaw Project.  They had to create a presentation that explains the cause and effect of various events that occured in Texas in it's infancy.  Students were given options to create their presentation digitally, in any form that they would like.  The teachers suggested, Prezi, Videos, and paper slideshows, but were open to creative ideas from the kids.  These teachers celebrated the 21st century skill of creativity.