The Big Chart

Here are the 180 boxes we said we'd fill this semester.

I am happy to report that we got through everything.

BIG CHART	JAN	FEB	MAR	APR	MAY	JUNE
Science Projects	conduct	complete & exhibit	state fair	--	--	--
Science Exhibitions	schedule; prep	conduct	--	--	--	--
Polis Projects	Greek poleis	original poleis	--	--	--	--
Einstein's Dreams	read	--	--	--	--	--
Innovation & Systems	begin reading	finish reading	--	identities	identities	--
Storm Project	begin	tend	complete	--	--	--
Detroit	DIA	--	--	Heidelberg	Earthworks	City FC
Lit Publication	revise fall prompts	4-6 prompts	4-6 prompts	big paper	final prompts	revise & publish
Athletics & PE	winter sports	tournament?	spring hikes	Mile Week	SK 5K	field day
Student Government	new goals	pursue	HHF week	new goals	pursue	--
High School 101	shadow days	lotteries	--	advice	advice	graduate
Our Whole Lives	gender	relationships	media	behavior	dangers	communication
Work Crews	second rotation	second rotation	second rotation	third rotation	third rotation	third rotation
Frankenstein	--	read	finish	--	--	--
Monkey House	--	--	read	--	--	--
Americans	slavery	reconstruction	Douglass	big paper	--	--
The Tempest	rehearse	rehearse	perform	--	--	--
Civic Project	conceive	narrow	select	conduct	exhibit	--
Civic Exhibitions	--	--	schedule	rehearse	conduct	--
Place out of Time	--	assign	engage	complete	--	--
Assessment	portfolios	prepare goals	conferences	--	complete portfolios	reflect
Frederick Douglass	--	--	read	finish	--	--
Jayhawker	--	--	--	--	read	--
Retro Projects	--	--	--	plan	conduct	exhibit
Retro Exhibitions	--	--	--	schedule	rehearse	conduct
Whale & Shorts	--	--	--	--	read	finish
Spring Trip	plan	communicate	prepare	pack	travel	--
Legacy Projects	determine	pursue	pursue	pursue	complete	exhibit
Legacy Exhibitions	--	--	--	schedule	rehearse	conduct
Graduation	--	--	diplomas	performances	prepare	graduate

Legacy Projects

By the end of every year, the eighth graders have completed Legacy Projects, which can take many forms: an event, a system, an installation; something that is left behind, or continues a tradition, at Summers-Knoll.

Margaret took on the Herculean task of clearing hundreds of costumes off the floor of the attic, organizing them by era and type, and hanging them up on spanking-new costume racks.

Kaeli followed on last year's community service project by setting up a relief effort for Syrian refugees. She contacted a local charity for advice on what was needed and then set up a middle school assembly line to make tote bags out of reused t-shirts and then fill them with a long list of useful sundries. These were then delivered to the charity's headquarters.

Nik built a spiral labyrinth out of inset stones in the little forest on the north side of our playground.

Matthew composed a Summers-Knoll anthem! Here it is:
https://drive.google.com/a/summers-knoll.org/file/d/0Bw82GcH5cpfpY0lHcERjWDRBVjQ/view?ts=575e00c1

Leander thought it would be fun if each homeroom decorated a ceiling tile. He scheduled meetings with each homeroom teacher, then with the classes; worked with each on design; gave them the supplies to carry them out; collected the completed tiles; and installed them in the art room.

Karenna met with Valerie Tibbs-Wynne to set up a Kinderbuddies program. She partnered each kindergartener with one of our 7-8 students and scheduled regular times from us to come down to Val's playground for spend time getting chased around by Summers-Knoll's littlest kids.

Retro Projects

At the end of every year, the seventh graders are tasked with revisiting a topic they encountered earlier in their academic career and then designing and executing a project that deepens and/or broadens their understanding of that topic. Once the project is completed, they conduct an Exhibition, which, as is conventional for that session, includes an explanation of the project and a lesson for attendees, adults and kids, that addresses the subject matter. Here is this year's crop.

Evan took a look back at Chinua Achebe's classic Nigerian novel, Things Fall Apart, by exploring three of that country's 521 different languages: Yoruba, Ibo, and Hausa. Evan taught us a few words in each language and then represented the difficulty of cross-communication by tasking partners with building a popsicle-stick house. The catch was that the partners had to work from vocabulary lists: one in Yoruba and one in Ibo.

Emma & Ellie followed up on their Civic Project on Little Free Libraries in Ypsilanti by working on a Summers-Knoll version. They whitewashed the little cabinet, attached the doors, put together a pile of books, and designed a final paint job featuring dragons and ivy. Our LFL will be installed outside the school in the fall.

Lindsay revisited her Fish Tank sessions by creating a document for future Fish Tankers giving clear, specific, and thorough step-by-step instructions on how to set up a tank. She showed us how to siphon water out of a tank, a crucial step in cleaning tanks, and we did so, not spilling too much water in the process.

Gabe looked back on his commercial shoot from fifth grade by showing and critiquing a series of short clips from Apple presentations in which the words amazing and incredible and such were repeated a hundred times or more. He then scripted and shot a parody iPhone commercial in which the features were greatly exaggerated in a technically honest fashion. Finally, Gabe invited us to invent a new product and concoct and advertising scheme to convince consumers that they desperately needed a product they had never heard of.

Marcellin revisited the days of Mars Out of Time by conceiving, designing, and building (in clay) a drone, or, in this case, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, that could function as a photography satellite on the planet Mars. Marcellin gave us instructions on requirements for such a vehicle and invited his attendees to design their own versions of the aircraft.

Appalachia and Washington DC

At our first stop, we visited several Underground Railroad stops in Mt Pleasant, Ohio. Members of the local Historical Society opened our visit with a tour of the largest Quaker Meeting House I had ever seen. This building, roughly the size of a high school gymnasium, can seat 2,000 people.

This restored log cabin dates back to 1803, the year of Ohio's statehood. While we toured it and the other buildings in Mt Pleasant, we were serenaded by millions upon billions of cicadas, out for their 17-year joyride.

That evening, we reached our cabins, located in a campground on the Potomac River near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. 

The next morning, we went river rafting on the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers; no photos of that, though--phones are not a good idea in Class III rapids. In the afternoon, we toured Harpers Ferry (above and below), including some information from a guide in 19th century garb and a tour of the outstanding little John Brown Museum.

John Brown is on the left.

Here we are atop Jefferson's Rock (above and below), with a view of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia
at the convergence of the Potomac and the Shenandoah.

We closed the trip with a day in Washington, where we ate Native American food for lunch and Ethiopian food for dinner.
In between, we walked the length of the National Mall from the US Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial.

We visited the Museum of the American Indian, the Air & Space Museum, and the Vietnam Memorial,
with the Lincoln Memorial serving as a capstone to our study of abolition.

We read through the Gettysburg Address and the conclusion of the Second Inaugural Address, noting in particular Lincoln's generosity of spirit toward all of those, black and white, North and South, soldier and family, who suffered in the Civil War. 

Civic Systems: First Responders

Margaret and Lindsay, with help from Ada, turned their interest in emergency medical response into an examination of a non-profit company whose representatives every driver in Ann Arbor has seen: Huron Valley Ambulance. One of their public relations officers, a former EMT named Chad French, was incredibly generous with his time, coming to Summers-Knoll for an interview with the girls, showing us around their facility on the south side of town, and even providing snacks. HVA has a fleet of over 700 vehicles in southeastern Michigan; in the second installment of Awesome Vehicles, we looked through both the front and back of an HVA ambulance (below). Chad tested out a diagnostic machine (worth several thousand dollars) used in all ambulances on Gabe, finding him in good health. We also saw the call center where 911 calls are routed to stations all over the region.

Civic Systems: Power

Power corrupts.                                   

Absolute power is kind of neat.         

                            --Donald Regan

Karenna and Marcellin took us to the University of Michigan Central Power Plant for their exploration of power in Ann Arbor. One of the directors of the operation, Jim Watterson, handed over the conference room for the students' explanation of how the steam-based turbines of the plant work (Jim was duly impressed). They also spent some time discussing the plant's transition from coal to steam in 1966, an environmentally based change that was years ahead of its time. After Marcellin and Karenna led a debate on the pros and cons of coal power, Jim took us into the control room of the whole enterprise (below). The next time you pass that huge plant where Huron turns into Washtenaw, you'll know why nothing ever comes out of that smokestack. It's been obsolete for fifty years.

Civic Systems: Snow Removal

Matthew and Gabe ushered in the Awesome Vehicles portion of our Civic Exhibitions with their tour around the Field Operations unit of Ann Arbor's city services, a few minutes south of Summers-Knoll off Ellsworth Road. First, our host Kirk Frederickson explained the priority system of snow removal in Ann Arbor: how much snow brings out the trucks; who gets service first, and why; how long it takes; how use of sand and salt has reduced the environmental impact of this city service; and the reduction in wintertime accidents that can be attributed to salt and plowing. Then, the good stuff. First, Kirk showed us around one of the city's six $160,000 snow trucks. (It was Matthew's father who figured out where the air horn was.) Then, we got to look inside the salt dome, where thousands of tons of salt are stored for use every winter. Some climbing and salt-sliding followed.