Food Production in Different Countries

All the 6th Grade students did research on how different countries produce and consume food. Once they learned about their country, they worked in groups to create a multimedia presentation that answered the various research questions. This lesson took six class periods to complete.

IDU and Dreamweaver

All the 8th Grade students used a variety of software to create a multimedia presentation that communicated their thesis statement about a particular controversy that is present in the society. This lesson took eight class periods to complete.

Microcuentos in SSL and Premiere Pro

Some of the SSL students wrote a microcuento (100 word story) and then recorded the story. Later they added graphics to illustrate the plot. This lesson took six class periods to complete.

Topics in SSL, Word and Inspiration

The SSL students used Word or Inspiration to complete their semester assessment, which was a writing assignment appropriate to the SSL level of their class. Some students had to write a biographical piece about someone in their family, and others had to write about an interview that they made. This lesson took three class periods to complete.

Thermometer Angle and Excel

The 6th Grade Science students used Excel to graph the data from their experiment on whether the angle at which a thermometer is placed in relation to a heat source has an effect on the temperature readings of the thermometer. This lesson took one class period to complete.

Science Research and Online Databases

The 8th Grade Science students used some of the online databases to which the school subscribes to do research for their interdisciplinary project (IDU). They saved their research notes and constructed their bibliography in a Google Docs document that they shared. This lesson took three class periods to complete.

Hatchet and Illustrator

After reading the novel, Hatchet, some of the 6th Grade Language Arts students used Illustrator to draw a picture of a scene that showed one or more of the book's conflicts. The lesson took three class periods to complete.

The Pearl and Illustrator

All the 8th Grade Language Arts students used Illustrator to create a scene from the novel The Pearl. The scene had to have some elements of symbolism. This lesson took four class periods to complete.

Reformation and Word

All the 7th Grade Social Studies students used the publishing layout in Word to create a newspaper report of some of the historical events that took place during the Reformation. The lesson took four class periods to complete.

Parthenon and Google Sketchup

All the 6th Grade Social Studies students created a 3D model of the Parthenon, which they later animated and exported as a short movie. This lesson took three class periods to complete.

Geometric Shapes and Sketchup

Some of the 6th Grade Math students constructed different geometric shapes with Google Sketchup. The students took two class periods to complete the assignment.

Electricity and Online Simulations

Some of the 8th Grade Science students used the PhET Interactive Simulations site to answer questions posted by their teacher. This lesson took two class periods to complete.

Mitosis and Powerpoint

The 7th Grade Science students made a seven slide presentation of the different stages of cell mitosis. They used various drawing tools to create the slides. This project took five class periods to complete.

Chemical Reactions, Excel and Word

Some of 8th Grade Science students used Word and Excel to write up the results of a lab that they did in class. The lab write up took three class periods to complete and the students used the mobile lab to record data and do the lab report while they were in the science lab.

Body Systems and Dreamweaver

All the 7th Grade Science students used Fireworks and Dreamweaver to create a four page website that gave information about a human body system that they researched. This lesson took five class periods to complete.

Microcuentos and Premiere Pro

The 8th Grade National Spanish students wrote a 100 word story that followed the rules of a well known literary competition called Santiago en Cien. Once the students finished writing, they made audio recordings of their stories at home. At school, they imported the voice recording into Premiere Pro, and then they added images that illustrated their story.

Phases of the Moon and Flash

The Sixth Grade Science students used Flash to create a model showing the phases of the moon. This project took three class periods to complete.

The Greeks and Webquests

All the 6th Grade Social Studies students accessed a variety of webquests, which helped them explore different aspects of the ancient Greek civilization. The lessons took two class periods to complete.

Lightning and Flash

The 8th Grade Science students used Flash to create a model of how lightning works. They used a movie clip and a variety of scenes to demonstrate friction and induction. The lesson took three class periods to complete.

Surface Areas, Volumes and Excel

The 8th Grade Geometry students used Excel to create formulas for surface area and volume of different 3D figures. Then they compared the ratio of the surface area and the volume, and drew conclusions from the different measurements that they tried. This lesson took one class period to complete.

World Explorers and iMovie

All the 8th Grade Social Studies students worked in groups and wrote scripts about specific historical events related to their unit on World Explorers. These scripts were written in Google Docs. Later the students acted out the scripts and filmed the scenes. Their video was captured with iMovie and then edited according to the teacher's specifications. In each group, some students recorded separate audio tracks in Garage Band that were later imported into iMovie. This project took 8 classes to complete.

pH and Excel

All the 6th Grade Science students used Excel to create a pH lookup chart for 14 common substances. The lesson took two class periods to complete.

Storyboards, Illustrator and Indesign

All the 6th Grade National Spanish students used Illustrator to create a storyboard about a scene in the novel, El Valle de los Cocuyos. Once they finished their drawings and text, the students imported the Illustrator graphics into a booklet that they had created in Indesign. After formatting the booklet, they printed it out. This took six class periods to complete.

Persuasive Speeches and Garage Band

Some of the 7th Grade Language Arts students wrote a draft of a persuasive speech. Then they polished that draft and recorded it in Garage Band. Finally they exported their persuasive speech as a podcast and dropped the file in their teacher's drop box. This lesson took three class periods to complete.

Chemical Reactions and Flash

All the 8th Grade Science students used Flash to animate a decomposition reaction. After practicing with that reaction, the students had to compose their own reaction, and animate it. This lesson took five class days to complete.

Advisory Class and Photoshop

Some of the 6th Grade Advisory students used Photoshop to edit advertisements that entice young people to smoke or drink. The students changed the ads so that they showed what really happens to a person who smokes or drinks in excess. This lesson took about four class periods to complete.

Osmosis Lab, Word and Excel

The 7th Grade Science students used Word and Excel to write up a lab they did in class about osmosis. This lesson took two class periods to complete.

Microcuentos and Premiere Pro

All the 8th Grade National Spanish students wrote a microcuento that followed the rules of the literary contest, Santiago en Cien. Once finished with the writing, the students then recorded their stories at home and brought them to school. In the computer lab, the students imported their recordings to Premiere Pro projects and added text, graphics, transitions and effects to create a movie version of their microcuento. This project took five class periods to complete.

Geometric Shapes and Geometer's Sketchpad

The 6th Grade Math students used Geometer's Sketchpad to create a variety of geometric shapes. Once the shapes were created, the students measured angles and sides. Later, they manipulated the different figures and analyzed the relationships between angles and sides. This lesson took two class periods to complete.

Wiki and Spanish Vocabulary

The 8th Grade National Spanish students used the teacher's wiki to access a vocabulary assignment that she had posted. This lesson took one class period to complete.

Poetry and iPhoto, Word and GarageBand

The 6th Grade Language Arts students began this project by writing poems in Word. To those documents, they added photos that they edited in iPhoto. Later they recited their poems in GarageBand and exported them as podcasts. Finally, the students uploaded everything to their teacher's wiki. This project took four class periods to complete.

Literary Terms and Premiere Pro

The 7th Grade National Spanish students had to identify various literary terms in the context of poems that they were reading in class. Once they had identified the terms, they made a movie where they used different styles to highlight the terms in the poem. Later, the students made the text scroll from bottom to top, added graphics and music. Then they exported the movie and dropped the finished product into their teacher's drop box. This project took three class periods to complete.

Book Recommendation and Glogster

The 6th Grade Language Arts students created an account with an online poster site, called Glogster. Once their account was linked to the teacher, the students created a poster that recommended a book they were reading or had recently read. This lesson took two class periods to complete.

Globalization and Word

Some of the 8th Grade Social Studies students searched for images that they used to create a collage that explained concepts about globalization, which they are currently studying. This lesson took three class periods to complete.

ALEKS Online Math Program

One section of 6th Grade Math is participating in a month long pilot which uses the online math program called ALEKS. ALEKS has also been used with a section of 7th Grade Math students and with a Resource Center class.

Grammar and Google Docs

The 8th Grade National Spanish students copied an excerpt from the newspaper, El Mercurio and pasted it into Google Docs. Then they shared that excerpt with their teacher. Once that step was completed, the students used a color code to identify different grammatical structures in the excerpt. This lesson took one class period to complete.

Earthquake Research and Filemaker

The 7th Grade Science students used Filemaker and the USGS site to examine earthquake activity around the world. First the students created a data base with Filemaker and then they imported a CSV file with almost 60,000 earthquakes that have been recorded since the 1970's. Later, they used Filemaker to sort and search the data, looking for patterns with the longitude, latitude, magnitude and depth. The lesson took four class periods to complete.

Five Pillars and Powerpoint

The 7th Grade Social Studies students used a webquest to research about the Five Pillars of the Muslim religion. Once they gathered the information, they created a Powerpoint which summarized their learning. This lesson took four class periods to finish.

Poemas and Illustrator

The 6th Grade National Spanish students used Illustrator to create a poster with graphics that represented metaphors in a poem they were studying. They also used Google Docs to share their poem with the teacher so she could review their work before they created the poster. The lesson took three class periods to complete.