Disability Empowerment Month

As the end of October is nearing, the Occupational Preparation students are finishing up their research projects and are eagerly sharing their presentations with each other. It has been a lot of work on their part but everything is coming together smoothly. Presentations will begin tomorrow and I will post some pictures of the finished products later this week.

Egg Drop Lab: Day 1

This summer as I was working on labs for the students I really wanted the egg drop lab to be more meaningful for the students so I asked Mr. Davidson and Ms. Woodyard if they wanted to collaborate together for our students and they both were excited for the opportunity. On Wednesday of this week, the Applied Science went to Mr. Davidson's room to work with his engineering students on designing an apparatus that would be dropped from a 30 foot building without breaking the egg that it held. It was so nice to see the students work in teams and design something that was aesthetically pleasing as well as functional.

The students did a great job collaborating together and the drop is today. I am looking forward to seeing if the egg will break or not. I will post how the drop went later in the week.

-Ms. G

Speed Lab: Continued

The students worked on their speed lab and found out how difficult it is to build a ramp to support weight from a lacrosse ball. After a lot of hard work, the students finally were able to do time trials. When I asked the students what they learned from the lab a lot of them surprised me with how much they learned about working as a team. They did a great job!

-Ms. G

The room was quite messy for a few days but at least the students were being creative and learning!

Field Trip to Fair: Lessons Learned

The OCS Team took the students to the NC State Fair. The students were excited for a week and thankfully two days before the field trip we found a driver. The OCS team only had one day to go to fair and when we arrived learned that the Fair didn't open till 3 pm. (Oh no....) The students were disappointed but quickly recovered when we walked around the fair site and went to the Art Museum which was right up the street. The bus driver remarked that in all of his years driving field trips that our group had the best temperament of all the groups he has driven in the face of change. I am so proud of the student's handling the changes with grace. They took a situation in which they were disappointed and turned it into a great memory.

So proud of the students they always impress me with their maturity. -Ms. G

Applied Science: Week 7

This week we have been continuing the Energy Unit. We are moving on to motion and speed. The other day we calculated the speed of objects using no calculator! It took a longer time than a calculator but it was worth it to build their basic math skills.

Next week, we are collaborating with the engineering students to design and build an egg drop apparatus to drop off of the side of the football stadium. The goal is for the students to not break their 3 eggs in their apparatus. Here is a list of supplies that the students should bring in for next Wednesday.

Yesterday, we worked on building a ramp only using: paper, magazines, staples and tape to race different objects down to measure the speed of certain types of objects. The student's were extremely creative and it was a pleasure to watch them work together in teams.

Will post some pictures of the finished ramps later. Have a great weekend!

-Ms. G

Recycle Bowl

The students will be competing in a Recycle Bowl competition starting October 21st and ending November 18th. The school for the State of North Carolina with the most pounds of materials recycled wins $1,000.

Please feel free to send recycled goods including: paper, newspaper, plastic containers, cans, aerosol cans, milk cartons and aluminum to school and the Occupational Preparation students will recycle the goods and collect data on how many pounds we have recycled. 

This opportunity is provided by Keep America Beautiful Campaign. 

For more information you can click here:
http://recycle-bowl.org/

Research Project

The Occupational Preparation class is completing a research project.

October is Disability Empowerment and Awareness Month.

Each student is working on researching and creating a PowerPoint that addressed the abilities that people with certain disabilities have. Feel free to ask your student about how they are doing and what they are learning regarding their research project. 

I am looking forward to seeing the student's present their findings. 

-Ms.G

Energy Resources

After we learned about energy resources in Applied Science we were ambassadors for the following countries: Angola, Venezuela, United States and Canada. The students had to trade resources from the major exported goods (lumber, cotton, corn, diamonds, petroleum and wheat)

The students did a great job and two of the students tied for the win as the best ambassador for their country. 

The importance of this activity was to show the difficulties that politic leaders have in ensuring that their people have their basic needs met. 

Energy!

The Applied Science class has been learning about different energy resources including: nonrenewable and renewable energy sources. 

The student's created their own poster with mechanical, light, heat, chemical, electrical and sound energy pictures on them. They are hanging up in the classroom for the other students to see. 

I have been teaching the student's about the Environment and we completed a word splash about using the word Environment. These are the words we came up with. The black is what we first came up with when we started the unit and the red is what we have added since we have started the unit.

This was a diagram for the student's (the applied science students could tell you the inside joke)

The students also completed and presented a PowerPoint presentation on: nonrenewable and renewable energy resources, air pollution, water pollution and solid and hazardous waste. The student's did a great job presenting and creating interesting PowerPoint using their own words. :) 

Occupational Preparation: Interests and Abilities

Recently, the students have been working on being able to identify their interests, abilities, values and how they differ from each other. 

The students created their own Interest Charts which are now covering some of the walls of the room with their colorful pictures or drawings. 

The students were given an article to read the other day identifying their awesome qualities and everyone did a great job. You can ask your youth and they should be able to tell you at least 5 things that they are awesome at. We also discussed gratitude and how being grateful is an important factor in living a happy life. The students listed 25 things they were grateful for and many of them were there support people. Feeling grateful to teach such amazing students! 

-Ms. Gillingham

Applied Science Unit 1: Atoms

The first unit that the students completed was: Atoms. 

The students had to be able to identify the parts of an atom:

1.) Electron: negatively charged: located in electron cloud

2.) Neutron: neutrally charged: located in nucleus

3.) Proton: positively charged: located in nucleus.

As well as, being able to identify the atomic mass and atomic number using the Periodic Table of Elements. All students did a great job being able to recognize where the elements are located in the Periodic Table. 

The students also had to describe the properties of objects such as this peach. They were able to describe things using: color, size, texture and weight.

We participated in a few Scavenger Hunts regarding elements which the students seemed to enjoy. Overall, the students did a great job. Congratulate them on their hard work! 

Welcome to the 2013-2014 School Year

The new school year is off to a great start this year. The OCS Team welcomes: Mr. Gonzalez the new English and History Teacher. 

Every 2 weeks we have been meeting as a whole for our OCS Chats. Topics so far have included:

1.) Hygiene

2.) Dressing appropriately
3.) Respect for self and others
4.) Unhealthy and healthy behaviors

The first chat the student's created a house made out of marshmallows and spaghetti as well as towers of Smarties. The student's had a great time exercising their spatial reasoning skills and working as a team. 

The second chat the student's tried to untie themselves from others when they formed the human knot. Another great communication and team building skills. Both teams struggled to get the knot untangled but they did have a great time. 

The last chat we discussed possible field trip ideas and went for a walk.

The next OCS Chat will be: Friday October 18th and will be a celebration for Ms. Watford's last day. We will be bringing in baked goods for the event if you would like to help contribute. Please email me: stephanie.gillingham@dpsnc.net

Thank you!