What's Happening at LTSA?

Today in math class, we decorated holiday trees and use math to describe our trees! Through this activity students reviewed a variety of math topics we have studied so far this year like writing equations, prime & composite numbers, and percents & ratios. Click "Read More" to see our trees and descriptions.

 This week is Computer Science Education Week! To celebrate, LTSA was proud to participate in the Hour of Code again this year. Students across multiple grade levels took part in the event, which is part of a global initiative that seeks to expose young people to programming concepts. This year we challenged students to use Scratch, a drag-and-drop programming platform, to create animated and interactive Holiday Cards.  Some students are still working on their cards, but you can view their works in progress here:  2020 Hour of Code

This week we have been combining our love of programming with Scratch with new information and skills we've been learning about electricity. Students used conductive items along with Makey Makey to design their own musical instruments.

Throughout the month of November students have been learning about voting and the election process in the United States. As part of this inquiry, students have 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! We're looking forward to seeing their creative solutions to some of these challenging problems!

 Today in our 6th/7th science class we wrapped up the learning we've been doing about cells. Each student shared their knowledge of plant and animal cells and the various organelles they contain as they presented the 3D cell models they've been working on this week. 

 I "locked" my 6th & 7th grade student up in the Biology Lab today. They had to work together as a team and apply all they've learned about cells to unlock the clues, find the keys, and escape the lab! 

I know, I know! Maybe it's a little too....meta. The 6th/7th grade students have been learning about different types of cells. We've discussed the differences between animal cells and plant cells. We compared bacteria cells to a virus, and debated whether or not we believed a virus should be classified as a living thing. Last week I digitized a shortened version of the classic Pandemic game so we could play together in class. The students are, understandably, a little jaded about anything named "Pandemic", so they were less than enthusiastic when we first started. By the end, though, they were able to draw some very important conclusions and parallels to our real life pandemic. If you've never played, Pandemic is a cooperative game - everyone works together to beat the game. Our class lost, but that made the reflections so much more powerful. Pandemic Reflections: Too much time treating disease in individual cities and not enough focus on finding a cure Needed ...