STEM

After some intense debate and compromising during period 5, Secondary 1 students have voted on and chosen their inquiry topic for the year. This year, there were 8 pitches to choose from: Homelessness, Acne, Zodiac signs, Fire, Skin care, Mushrooms, Marine Biology, and Non-Newtonian solids. Following a secret ballot vote the winning topic is marine biology.

McGill undergraduate students joined us at Trafalgar for a lunch and learn session on Tuesday November 5th. They spoke with Ms. Loupelle’s Sec. I class and witnessed experiential learning techniques first hand. They witnessed the class discuss formal pitches, building upon other thoughts and ideas, and the concept of inquiry based learning. It was a pleasure to share ideas and discuss 21st century learning.

On Tuesday, Secondary 1 students, along with Ms. Loupelle and Ms. Offer, travelled to the Morgan Arboretum and the Macdonald Campus Horticultural Research Center to explore relationships between organisms and relationships organisms have with nature. They also looked for evidence, both positive and negative, of human impacts on the environment. Additionally, they toured the fruit and vegetable research farm and learned about sustainable agriculture while picking asparagus and helping the farmers plant onions in the fields.

It was a wonderful day with lots of learning, getting dirty, fresh air, and mosquitos!

On Monday during lunch recess, our students and staff did a quick Earth Day clean-up, picking up not only on our own property, but on the sidewalks near the school.

On Feb 28th, our advanced math students participated in an annual math competition. Secondary 1 and 2 students wrote a 30 min CNML competition, whereas the senior students wrote a 60 min competition associated with University of Waterloo (Pascal, Cayley, Fermat).