JULIE and MBACHI'S CLASS NOTES

As always, the beginning of February heralds the celebration Black History and reminds us to rec- ognize the many ways that African Americans have contributed to the development and advancement of our country. At Gathering, we celebrated the African American Read-In by honoring children’s book author Jacqueline Woodson. We welcomed Jon Snow back to share a tale he tells so well; Jack and the Devil, and Julie read a story about the life of NASA scientist and inventor, Lonnie Johnson who became famous for in- venting the Super Soaker.

In class, the students are working in groups to research inventions of their choice. They wrote down the questions that were important to answer about the invention and used those as search terms to gather in- formation for a “one pager”. This one page of information will contain the crucial information along with vibrant illustrations that represent how the invention came to be, and perhaps what existed before and after. Students are also considering whether the invention solved problems for specific individuals (like the pacifier), or for society as a whole (like the washing machine). These subtle answers aren’t always obvious, and information could be presented to support different arguments.

There is new growth on the willow dome structure that my class works on with Mamoun Grosvenor, and we are in charge of weaving branches back into the dome so they can eventually grow together and make the dome strong enough to climb (maybe in 3 years according to Mamoun)!