Mr. Bresciani's Blurbs: What We Learned Today...May 15th

The Bresciani Bunch showing off their Solar Ovens!

Instead of AR first thing this morning, we dove right into ELA and continued our lesson on Solar Energy. Students grabbed the Solar Ovens they were making yesterday and spent the hour constructing the rest of their project. As I said yesterday, I was amazed by the amount of creativity each group demonstrated in the construction of their ovens. It was also quite interesting to see the different foods each group wanted to try and cook. (we had smores, bacon, eggs, and hot dogs - quite the intriguing mix!)

After about an hour we wrapped up the construction portion of the lesson and switched gears to Social Studies. (We thought it would be better to try and cook in the afternoon sun) In Social, students got back into their Colonization Simulation Groups and we jumped a considerable amount of time into the future again. As a result, a new group was introduced into the unit - The Metis & African American group. Some of the highlights of today were: the buffalo hunt, the introduction of Indian Agents into the simulation, and designing a flag for our country.
At 10:45 the students had Phys. Ed with Ms. Norris and spent the majority of the period presenting their Stuntnastics routines for the class.

Due to the fact that we only had Social Studies for a half hour this morning, we continued the second half of the class from 12:45 to 1:15. After Social Mr. McCulloch came in to teach Health and continued his unit on Sexuality in Fully Alive.

One of the Solar Ovens.

During the last hour of the day we headed outside to get some sun and test out our Solar Ovens. Once we got outside students had to make an important decision on what location would collect the most Solar Energy for their ovens. It was also very intestesting to see some of the different ideas groups had on where to place their ovens outside. We had groups on the blacktop, in the baseball diamond and field and some at the top of the play apparatuses. Most groups got their ovens to atleast 40 degrees with one group almost reaching 60! Unfortunately though, we had a few clouds that decided to stop by, so some groups were left with their food half cooked (sorry bacon groups!). Overall it was a very interesting activity and I can't wait for tomorrow when the groups will need to reflect on the data they collected today and make a judgement on whether they feel this type of technology would be handy in everyday life.

Here's a few more pictures from our day today: