January Projects and Exhibitions

Throughout January, we will be working on the next round of projects, these built around the theme of Identity. The Exhibitions, scheduled for the last two weeks of the month, will feature these projects. Here is a sample of what our seventh and eighth graders are presently planning.

• a totem pole, populated with figures who symbolize key values of Summers-Knoll, carved in consultation with area artists, and secured on SK property
• a pamphlet targeted to teens explaining online identity theft, researched with assistance from the Ann Arbor Police Department
• also in collaboration with the AAPD, a unit of lessons on criminal detection, to be taught to Elaine's first and second grade class
• a new statistical model accounting for regional differences when calculating the poverty line in the United States, developed with support from the U of M Economics department
• two illustrated children's books: the first, entitled Foggy Lenses, will examine the influence of concepts such as race and class upon our perceptions of people; the other will explore the concept of a fourth dimension, casting the shadows we call the third dimension
• a mural, to be painted in the stairwell leading up to the seventh and eighth grade space, showing the ways in which identities are manifested at SK and elsewhere
• a short film of interviews with Holocaust survivors in southeastern Michigan, supported with footage from the Holocaust Museum in Oakland County

While this is not an exhaustive list, and not all topics have yet been transformed into projects, these should give a sense of the degree to which our middle school projects are increasingly oriented toward partnerships with mentors in the community beyond Summers-Knoll.