Berlin Boxing Club Gallery Walk

Students in Mr. Garcia, Mr. Williams, and Ms. Sladovnik's classes recently went back in time to travel to pre-holocaust Berlin.  Students were immersed in the culture, stories and environment that the book embodied.  Some students had their first visit virtually to the Dachau Concentration Camp, learned about the struggles of Max Schmelling, the famous boxer, and learned about survivor stories from The Holocaust.  

Holding the Human Heart

Mr. Lyon's 7th grade science classes worked with the Daqri Human Body App to explore the human heart.  Students were able to zoom in and see the tri-cuspid and bicuspid valves up close.  They could see the blood flow, and turn features on and off on the heart to see various parts of the heart.  Students could also spin their target paper to see a 360 view of the human heart as well.  The experience went beyond looking at a picture of the human heart in a book or worksheet.  

Mapping in Minecraft

Mrs. Kobren's 8th grade science classes were able to explore contour maps using the popular building game, Minecraft.  In this educational version of minecraft, students were transported to a world where they initially had to build the contour lines on the map.  After they completed that task, Mrs. Kobren had a discussion about the lines and what they mean on the map.  Students then were given the contour lines and had to build a new mountain based on the lines.  All in all, the experience expanded the students knowledge of topographical maps, and they scored higher than the other 8th grade students on the benchmark assessment questions that covered topographical maps than the other 8th grade students!

Making Movies, One Picture at a Time

Ms. Stoeffler's art students researched famous artists and then created Lego minisets to create stop animation videos in our Next Gen Library using the Lego Movie Maker App.  Students were able to explain in detail information about why their artists became artists, how they became artists, and what kind of artwork they produced.  They also built sets and props using class Legos to feature in their film.   

Deerpark Teachers go into Spring Training

Several Deerpark teachers have been attending the McNeil Vertical Learning Community App Smash Professional Development Series.  Teachers get the opportunity to explore various web applications and how to apply them to student learning.  They also were given time to create various lessons using the apps that they discovered during the training.  

Deerpark Robotics Takes 3rd Overall

Deerpark's Robotics Team, The Epic Rainbow Radioactive Flying Squirrels, recently competed in the Central Texas First Lego League Competition.  Students spend a semester working on a project based research project, building and designing a robot made out of Legos and programming their robot to do various "missions" on a field mat.  Teams in all of Central Texas compete for an invitation to the the Central Texas Invitational Tournament and Deerpark was offered one of the coveted spots.  In the end, The Epic Rainbow Radioactive Flying Squirrels were awarded 3rd Place Overall in their tournament.  

 

Deerpark Hour of Code

Deerpark Middle School recently participated in the Hour of Code.  A group of students in the Teen Tech Advisory Team got together and worked on lessons to teach each zone class an hour of code.  Students coded their own beats, made dancing monsters, and even programmed lights that would be displaced on one of the Christmas Trees at the Whitehouse!  Some students even coded their own Flappy Bird and Angry Birds games.  Students in Ms. Pikas' zone, worked on more challenging coding, while students in Mr. Widis and Ms. Rathburn's classes worked on more advanced coding with Scratch and Java.  Overall, almost every student on our campus was exposed to coding this week.  It was really amazing.  

The Teen Tech Advisory Team is working on collecting all of the beats that students coded and creating a single Deerpark beat in Audacity.  Look for more posts with their completed project!

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