Semester 3- Week 7
- Voula and Janira
- May 8, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: May 11, 2024
Tuesday
Ancient Civilizations - An Immersive Day
Today's class was a full-fledged time travel adventure! We plunged into the heart of Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, uncovering its incredible advancements and rich culture. But our journey wasn't just about memorizing facts. We donned our thinking caps and became judges in mock trials, using Hammurabi's famous code of laws to bring justice to simulated cases. It was a heated battle of logic and critical thinking!
Next, we channeled our inner engineers with a STEM challenge fit for the Mesopotamians themselves. Using everyday materials and string, students meticulously built shadufs – those ingenious water-lifting devices that helped Mesopotamian agriculture flourish. The creativity and ingenuity on display were truly awe-inspiring!
But the learning didn't stop there. We delved even deeper with a writing exercise that transformed our students into lawmakers. Imagine creating your own set of laws for your own community! Their thoughtful and creative proposals showcased their understanding of Hammurabi's code and its importance in maintaining order.
To top off this immersive day, we capped it all off with a lively trivia game, testing our newfound knowledge of Mesopotamia and Hammurabi's legacy. It was a whirlwind of learning, creative problem-solving, and a whole lot of fun!
The Living Wax Museum is just 3 weeks away , and we're excited for students to showcase their hard work!
This is a whole-class project, and everyone's participation is essential. Each student will be a living exhibit, bringing history to life for the entire school.
Your child's participation ensures a successful and engaging experience for everyone. It allows them to share their chosen historical figure and collaborate with classmates to create a truly immersive museum experience.
We encourage you to discuss the project with your child and offer support in their preparations.
Ideas
Instructions
Wednesday
Morning Gathering
This week, our students transformed into wool sculptors! We dived into the exciting realm of 3D needle felting, a technique where you use barbed needles to sculpt and shape wool fibers into amazing dimensional creations.
Marine Biology
As we move along in the semester in this marine biology course, we are always discussing the entire ecosystem and environment as a whole, and how everything is interconnected. If one part of the process is disrupted, it affects the entire ecosystem. For example, this week we explored the world of horseshoe crabs! Who would ever think that this arthropod, which has been around for 400 MILLION years, provides such a significant role in helping a species of bird that essentially flies from pole to pole, resting on our local shores for about 2 weeks (feeding on horseshoe crab eggs), before heading to the Arctic! Every May, during the spring high tide and full moon, out come the ancient horseshoe crabs to spawn and lay their eggs (FYI they've already begun emerging). Meanwhile, in Tierra del Fuego (southernmost point of South America), a migrating shorebird called the Red Knot is taking flight to begin its almost 10,000 mile journey north! Scientists and nature enthusiasts travel from all over the world to the south Jersey shores and Delaware bay to witness this spectacular event! What a beautiful symbiotic relationship between 2 species that occurs so close to us! There are countless organizations encouraging people to help count and survey horseshoe crabs, as well as walking the shores, turning them over right side up (not by the tail).
However in the 1970's, aside from small commercial fishermen using the horseshoe crabs as bait, there has been another cause of over-harvesting and massive decline in horseshoe crab numbers. In 1971, the medical industry claimed this ancient animal as a new life-saving tool. Researchers discovered that when they exposed the horseshoe crab to E. coli bacteria, the crab’s blood clotted. The clotting indicated the presence of endotoxins, toxic substances released by E. coli and other gram-negative bacteria that could produce severe symptoms in exposed humans (if injected directly into the bloodstream). Essentially, the horseshoe crab blood cells surround the bacteria, and then release a substance to kill the bacteria. Even if the bacteria are killed through sterilization, the remaining toxins can be harmful. The Limulus Amoebocyte Lysate (or LAL) test is now used around the world to make sure medicines are free of endotoxins.
As the horseshoe crabs are collected, sterilized in a solution, their blue blood (worth more than gold) is then drained (30% they say), and then dumped back into the ocean. Over half a million horseshoe crabs a year are taken. Before regulations were put into place, one year 2 million of them were taken (and not returned). No horseshoe crabs mean no eggs, and no eggs mean no food for Red Knots and other migrating shore birds. Horseshoe crab numbers have begun to rebound, however it takes 10 years to mature (spawn & lay eggs). Red Knots are down 80% in the last 20 years. Scientists do not know if its too late to save the Red Knots.
The Wetlands Institute is conducting the one and only study done on the health of horseshoe crabs after the medical labs toss them back into the ocean. An interesting debate occurred in class in what alternative methods can be implemented for the medical industry in finding other ways to detect bacteria. I was blown away by their suggestions and insight.
PBS has an excellent series called Crash: A Tale of Two Species - Horseshoe Crabs and Red Knots.
Energy 101
Today we reviewed the self healing hand positions (head, ears, eyes, neck, lower back, heart, belly, lower belly—the ankles and feet, which NO one wanted anything to do with. Interestingly they correlate with major organs (brain, digestive tract, heart, lungs).
We spent time discussing that we can also send healing vibrations and prayers to our food. Food has a frequency, just like love does at 528Hz. The sooner we pick it and eat it the more dense in nutrients it is. We spent some time reviewing all the amazing vitamins and nutrients in the fruits and vegetables that we were going to juice. That these nutrients assist our body in keeping the glandular system, lymphatic system, overall immune system functioning optimally.
Then it was time to taste test! Group 2 loved the apple /lemon. Group 1 decided that mixing all three varieties could be an option and they discovered they loved mixing all three. Variety 3 was carrot/orange. Group 3 loved the beet, orange, carrot, zucchini juice.
Team building was a must as everyone participated in the juicing process as well. We learned about how we can clean our veggies and fruits and completed an experiment in seeing how distilled white vinegar and baking soda cause a neutralizing and bubbling effect from cleaning pesticides, to bugs, to dirt, toxins etc….anything we don’t want to ingest is removed through this process. Overall using one of them works as well.
We had fun realizing that all of this is connected…earth, food, energy, us.
Art & Sculpting
This week the kids learned about Henri Matisse, a French artist (1869-1954) who was one of the first artists to paint in this style dubbed fauvism or "wild beasts." We painted our own fishbowl paintings inspired by his Goldfish paintings, and learned about muted and contrasting bright colors to draw your eyes attention, simplified forms, organic and geometric shapes, patterns, and had some fun painting!
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