December 4, 2019

Welcome back to the High School Corner!

This week, we wanted to give you a not-so-brief (yet abridged!) overview of some of our semester highlights. 

Thank you for your interest,

Jacob B and Sophia D

 

Computer Science (AP Class)

• Students learned how to program in both block and text-based programming languages. 
• Students worked on individual coding projects, such as:
  • A choose-your-own-adventure game
  • A randomized racing game
  • A poll that shows your political leanings

• Student-created presentations and discussed topics including 2019 Hong Kong protests, the Uighur Muslims in China, the impeachment inquiry/hearings, Brexit, Venezuela’s economic, political, and humanitarian crisis, and the Syrian Civil War

• Held a reenactment of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, in which students took on the roles of various historical figures and sought to create their own Constitution
• Studied Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, and early 20th century America, and wrote argumentative papers on topics from the time period
• Topics included Social Darwinism and the eugenics movement, the history of recorded sound in America, Jim Crow and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the American labor movement and the rise of socialist thought, the subjugation of the Plains Indians, the Current War, and the treatment of mental illness in women
• Currently planning our HS trip to Hawaii in March of 2020!!

• Jacob finished his first semester of Greek.
• Dual-credit course at the University of St. Thomas
• Some students are enrolled in the AP Spanish Language and Culture class and test.
• Sarah is one year into her French learning program.
• Literature Seminar/Writer’s Workshop/Creative Expression
• Read, analyzed, and performed Our Town, a play by Thornton Wilder
• Currently reading Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Several students are taking AP English Literature course and test.
• Sophomore students wrote personal statements, juniors wrote This I Believe essays, and seniors wrote their college application essays
• Poem analysis (Emily Dickinson, Li-Young Lee, Adrienne Rich, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Billy Collins, Marge Piercy, Olive Senior)
• Sarah committed to creating a portfolio to submit for the AP Studio Art test.

• General topic for the semester: A “Geometry/Pre-Calculus strand” with a focus on trigonometric ratios 
• Students partake in a math seminar weekly, in which they solve real-life math problems collectively, examine differing paths to arrive at the same answer, and engage in mathematical discourse.  
• We have committed to taking the AP Statistics course and have been engaging in statistical conversations as well as analyzing statistical data that we encounter in our everyday lives (i.e. newspaper articles, textbooks, etc).

• Visited iFly to enhance our studies of Newton’s Laws and Kinetic energy in Physics class
• Built catapults and explored the properties of projectile motion and vectors using these creations as aids as a part of Physics class

• Student presentations on social justice issues and poverty
• Including topics such as the cycle of poverty, minimum wage vs a living wage, how policy affects/exacerbates poverty, and how the Catholic Church is helping 
• We hosted a guest speaker, Sister Carol Mayes O.P., and discussed current Catholic controversies. 

• Seniors have sent in several of their college applications!
  • Stay tuned for more information on our decisions next semester
• The Houston Area Recruiters’ Network (HARN) hosted an admissions case study workshop for our juniors and sophomores
• College visits from the following:
  • Goucher College
  • Hiram College
  • Juniata College
  • Lycoming College
  • Marymount University
  • Olin College of Engineering
  • Southwestern University
  • Spring Hill College
  • St. Edward’s University
  • Transylvania University
  • Trinity University
  • University of Alabama Birmingham
  • University of Houston Engineering
  • University of Puget Sound
  • Westminster College
  • Willamette University

• Julia has an internship with Mr. Alan Lindsey, an environmental attorney with Hess Corporation.
  • She is learning about the intersection of environmental and energy law and policy and preparing a brief about methane rollbacks.
• Community service work for Casa de Esperanza
  • We’re helping develop Casa’s teen program and have interacted with the organization by hosting a Halloween party for the children at Casa, making birthday boxes for children who are celebrating their special day, and cooking and delivering meals weekly.