Environmental Impact

The seventh grade students are about to begin their second design project of the year! The students will be choosing a current technology. Then, using their research skills, the students will need to determine how this technology will impact the environment in the future. The students will have to predict the future!

Our class 3d printer, one of the technologies chosen for research.

Once the students have come to an understanding of how this technology will impact the future, they will need to create some sort of presentation to share their knowledge. This can be a Google Slides presentation, it can be a website, a poster, a flyer, an essay, or something else the student may want to do. However, the students will need to communicate their information in a clear, yet immersive way.

Be sure to stay tuned in with twitter (@MrHron) and our classroom website (mrhron.blogspot.com) for more updates!

More Design Cycle

The fifth grade students are about to begin their next design. For the first time, this design is going to incorporate all aspects of the design cycle into one project. With the treehouse project, each aspect of design was taught and completed individually. That will change, and class will become a little bit more challenging for the fifth grade students.

Complete Treehouse Designs

The next project is going to give the students an opportunity to create a Google Slides presentation about a topic they are interested in. The students will have to determine what research they want to do, what information to include in their presentation, and what style ideas they like for their presentation. It will be the first time the students use all parts of the design cycle together, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out!

Be sure to check out our twitter (@MrHron) and our classroom website (mrhron.blogspot.com) for more updates!

Creating a Website

The 8^th grade students are currently in the middle of their next project. They were tasked to create a website to inform and advertise the public about an existing robot in development. The students are working hard to research their robot, so that the website they create can be thorough and complete with accurate information.

One aspect of the research is to interview an engineer or the CEO of the robot they are researching. Many students are rising to the challenge, and creating spectacular research questions. Several interview questions have been sent out to CEOs and engineers around the world, and a few have already responded! Many of the 8^th grade websites will now have exclusive research from primary sources that is not widely available elsewhere.

Be sure to stay tuned in with twitter (@MrHron) for more updates!

Hoping for Wind

The sixth grade students have completed their kites! Now, we are waiting for a properly windy day to begin flying our kites. During Flight Day, the students will test their kite to see how well it flies, test different string access points, and try different flying techniques in attempt to get their kite as high as possible in the air.

A mega-kite, built by a group that enjoys challenges.

The students were also working on collaboration and group work skills during this time. Many

students showed major improvement with these skills. It was challenging at times, but working in a group (especially a group with kite conflict) teaches life-long, transferable skills that the students will rely on through high school, college, and wherever they end up working.

We are hoping for a windy day (we need at least 10mph wind), that isn't too cold. Our window for finding this day is closing. But, we still have a chance at seeing Flight Day, as November slowly moves towards a colder December.

Be sure to stay tuned in with twitter (@MrHron)!

Online Voting - Good Idea or Not?

Last week I challenged my 7th grade students to write a persuasive essay convincing the reader that online voting was, or was not, a good idea. This was challenging because I was expecting 3 just one class period. This means students only had about 30 minutes to research the topic, organize their ideas, and complete a full essay. There wasn't time for pre-writing or proofreading.

paragraphs full of persuasive writing, in

The results were spectacular.

Between now and next Tuesday (voting day), I will be highlighting these essays on this blog!

Online Voting - Sophia

Do you think the United States should do online voting? Well my answer is no we should not do online voting because of the fact that there are some talented hackers in our world who can easily change the votes. Like how some hackers how took down a chunk of our internet. Also there could be people who vote more than once using different systems or using a  different email.

Security experts say that there is not enough protection for any of the ballots transmitted over the internet. Lots a people say the this will be a recipe for chaos. Online voting could be good but there is just not enough protection. It will take them a few years before they figure out a good protection plan.

So I don’t want online voting,it will just cause big arguments between people. Again there is just not enough protection for online voting. Come join the fight for no online voting.