What's Happening at LTSA?

  S.P.A.M. Media News:  Our high school class was tasked with building a news media group to report on current events, so we decided to make a digital newspaper. We named our digital newspaper “S.P.A.M. Media” meaning S tudent P olitical A rgument M edia. Within the issues we talked about things like our election, current problems arising and the COVID-19 pandemic. We also followed the presidential campaign of Ethan Henderson, a 14-year-old candidate from Lake Travis STEM Academy.  Some of the things we learned in creating our own news source was how to write fast and efficient summaries, how to stay on schedule with releasing our issues, and how to draw readers in and ask them questions to inspire critical thinking. A lot of people today just take in information without seeking evidence or investigating and so our tagline is .........."encouraging critical thinking" Check out our two issues and look for our third issue in the coming weeks. We hope SPAM Media News...

As our last PBL in the fall, students spent many weeks learning about voting and the election process in the United States. As part of this inquiry, students learned that voting is not always easy for some citizens. Indeed, there are many factors that can make it all but impossible for eligible voters to cast their ballot.  We asked students to think about some of the issues we had identified together during HUB and to dig deeper to develop a better understanding of the barriers to voting that some people face. Then, we challenged them to take action based on their research. Our students ended up taking a variety of actions to promote positive change related to elections. Some students chose to create educational videos, some started petitions or wrote to congressmen, others created prototypes of systems that could potentially be developed and used by voters in future elections. Please enjoy this LTSA News Special Report to learn more about their actions! Please click the links bel...