As you all know I have taken the last few weeks of the school year off to be home with my newest son Evan. I want to thank each of you for a great school year and say good luck as you move on to High School. I hope to see around town and hopefully at some Tech H.S. events next year. Thanks again!
--Mr. Cox

Field Trip - next week

Next Thursday (April 23), Team 3 will be attending an all day (8:40-2:30) Leadership Retreat through St. Cloud State University. While more details are coming, we need to let the cooks know if your child will be needing to buy a lunch from the cafeteria or will they be bringing one from home that day. We will be taking a count tomorrow (Wednesday) and double checking that count on Thursday to submit to the cafeteria before Friday.

MCA Week

Today ALL South Jr. High 8th graders will be starting the MCA II tests. On Tuesday and Wednesday we will be taking the 4 segments of the Math test - Thursday and Friday we'll be taking the Reading portion. It is really important that all of the students do their very best work. To help with that - please make sure your child has all of the materials they need for the week and that each of them get a good night's sleep and healthy breakfast each morning.

There will be no classes this week so the students can focus on their tests. However, students are encouraged to continue working on their Australia Wiki Project as much as they need to. We will be using these pages later next week.

Wednesday

Today we went over the tests - for some it went VERY well, but for others it did not. I will be describing a retake option in my next post.

for today (Wednesday) and tomorrow, we'll be working on our Australia/New Zealand maps. The focus will be looking at both political and physical geography of the area. Students will be responsible for finding a variety of locations and regions throughout the region.

We'll be using the maps for future reference.

Coming up...

Just a quick heads up that we will be having our Africa test next Monday or Tuesday (depending on your class and our schedule). The test will have three (3) parts...

1. Map
2. Vocabulary
3. Social Issues

Students should have received a review map by Thursday (tomorrow), Thursday March 26th. We will be reviewing and wrapping up on Friday.

Our next unit is going to be looking at the Australia region.

Some of the best Videos...

I just wanted to show off some of the best videos that were able to be posted online. Overall, most of the students did a really good job getting to know their topic in a very new and sometimes frustrating way.

Keep up the good work!!!!

Wednesday-Thursday

We are going to be creating videos that we'll watch as a class which looks at social issues which are facing Africa South of the Sahara. Students will be able to pick their own groups which means it is their responsibility to choose good group members.

Here is a general outline for this project...

Wednesday/Thursday: research in the lab both images and information that will be used to tell your story. It is important to choose carefully the images you would like to represent your topic. Remember, you are telling a story about very tough topics.

You will be given a storyboard to help organize both your images and the text that will go with it.

Friday: use your information to begin creating your video. You will be using iMovie to create this project. I will be going through in class how to create the videos - fairly easy.

Monday (March 23rd) - finish videos and upload to TeacherTube so we can all view them online.

Tuesday (March 24th) - present videos and allow groups to explain their topics.

Topics include...

• Apartheid in South Africa
• Poverty in Africa
• HIV/AIDS in Africa
• Genocide in Rwanda
• Genocide in Sudan
• Child Labor and Soldiers in Africa
• Political Conflict in Somalia
• Political Conflict in Sierra Leone

To be sure everything is completed and done well, please check out the Project Checklist