Goodbye!

Goodbye from jabernethy

East Elementary from jabernethy

Robotic rhinos 2017 2018 from jabernethy

PAECT Student Technology Showcase

Today was the annual PAECT Student Technology Showcase at our state Capitol building in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Twelve amazing students from Maker's Club joined Mrs. Greleski and I to represent how the students at our school use technology. We had two tables set up. One table
showcased our project with HIP Academy where we are using technology to help a school in Kenya, Africa with their education. We showed animals, letters, and other learning tools we made on our 3D printer. We also had a stack of books our students had written for the students in Africa. Many of the books even had translations from Swahili to English. The other table had the robots we made and coded in maker's club and other items we made such as 3d printed prosthetic hands.

All of the students had the opportunity to tour the beautiful Capitol building. They witnessed a second amendment protest and even got to sit in on the house in session. The building is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen! Below are some pictures, including some 360 photos of the Capitol Building. I hope you will take the time to view all of it.

Noah, Bennett, Logan, Zach, and Myles with the robots and Maker's Club

Jackson, Nick, Harmony, Lily, Melody, Tristen (Not Shown Gregory)

Protestors in the big rotunda

Myles, Mrs. Abernethy, Zack and Meccano

Air Quality Investigation

Below is a Donors Choose Project that was fully funded by friends and family..

Our project included students taking home the air quality meters and testing their homes, cars, community shops, and any other place they thought might be interesting to test.

Soon they had books full of data. They transferred their data into a Google Sheet and shared it among all students in the classroom. Students formed groups to study the all the data they had gathered. They had temperature, humidity, HCHO, TVCO and places where air quality had been tested. Using the data, they made decisions and created charts and graphs. Below are the students' SMART amps portraying their conclusions.

In the Garden

A rare spring day allowed us to begin spring clean-up in the garden!

Trojan Traits Assembly

Below are some 360 videos that you can interact with while you watch. Just put your mouse on the screen and move the video picture around to view the entire room!

The First Post to Africa!

Today we mailed our first post to HIP Academy in Africa. The parcel was small, because we want to make sure everything arrives safe and sound, before we begin to bombard them with everything we have to give them. Our parcel includes some 3D printed letters and animals, four student written books (one written from English to Swahili) and some Robotic Rhino pens. We hope everything arrives safely and we will anxiously await word!

The Three Little Goats from jabernethy

Baseball ABCs from jabernethy

Colors in Swahili. from jabernethy

Hatching Chicks!

We had a really exciting week! In three days, we hatched 19 chicks (out of 27) which is over a 2/3 hatch rate! Pretty good!!!! And definitely FUN!!!!

The Talent Show for HIP Academy

What happens when you let Kids take charge? I could not be prouder of these kids! They came up with an idea to help others less fortunate half a globe away! Just so you know, I had barely anything to do with this project!!!! This was pure Kids doing what Kids can do when you don’t tell them what to do, when you set no limits, when you just listen and say yes you can do that!

The day of the show, the janitors asked how many chairs we would need for the event. I had no idea so I said 100, picturing half of them empty. I also told them to just leave the chairs out. Kids stayed after school, set the whole gym up, ate donated pizza (thank you Maddy’s mom), and waited for the crowd to appear. It wasn’t long before the kids were in search of MORE chairs!!!

The night was amazing! I never touched a dollar of the money. The kids handled all of it! The show was perfect (not adult perfect, but kid perfect!) I also want to note that I didn’t spend a cent on cups or plates or any of the supplies the kids sold (except the 3d printed stuff) which is unusual for a teacher “in charge” of a school event. The kids did it all! It was the kids all the way! And for those of us heading into our golden age, it is good to know, we are in good hands!

#kidpower #giveittothekids #kidsareawesome #HIPAcademy #Livingstonekegode

The Slide presentation below was written and presented by our class president, Tristen.

HIP Academy from jabernethy

Printed with permission from Record Argus

A 360 degree video of the talent show. The sound is not great, but it is fun to move the screen around and look at what's going on from different angles.

Working Hard After School!

Students have really been working hard after school this week on their HIP Academy project. On Friday, they plan to have a talent show to raise funds to send 3d printed educational items, books they have written themselves, and books they have collected to the school in Africa where our friend and Skype partner Livingstone Kegode works. Today we skyped with our mutual friend and CEO of Open World Cause, Ben Honeycutt. Ben lives and teaches in Colorado Springs and this is the second time we have skyped with him this year. He gave us a lot of information about Livingstone and the school that will come in handy for the introduction of our show tomorrow night. Below are pictures of us skyping with Ben and various pictures of students who stayed after school working on projects.

Skyping with Kenya

Today two of my four classes had the honor of Skyping with the amazing Livingstone Kegode a teacher in Kimilili, Kenya. We Skyped with him earlier this year and he inspired my students so much that they have been learning Swahili using a program called Duolingo. They created digital animal research projects and picture books for his students. This Friday they are hosting a talent show, bake sale and selling their own homemade wares to raise funds to ship 3D printed animals, letters and numbers to their Kenyan friends. They have also been collecting books for an organization called Books for Africa that has a warehouse in Atlanta, Georgia. Part of the money they raise will go toward shipping the books to Atlanta. That organization will take the books to Africa and personally give the books to children in the villages in Africa. I am very proud of my students. Until this week this has been a truly student-driven project. I am only stepping in now to help with the last minute logistics of their plan. These KIDS ARE AMAZING! and thank you, Livingstone, for inspiring them to do great things! Help Livingstone Kegode Save the HIP AFRICA School! Open World Cause.

Skyping with Livingstone and his students.