Category Archives: Awesome Academic Projects

Rise To The Challenge With Grade 7

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Rise To the Challenge (RTC) is the intensive for our Grade 7 students.  Intensives are a concentrated period of study where an entire grade is working on a project or projects, with profound research and preparation, followed by a public event. These intensives are designed with Hamlin’s mission in mind, as our students meet the challenges of their time.

RTC really started in autumn when students began going on various field trips where they volunteered and learned about how nonprofits serve a community. In addition to those engaging experiences, throughout the year students listened to many guest speakers who shared their altruistic wisdom and inspiration.

This preliminary work culminated with Grade 7 students choosing their own RTC topics, doing in-depth research, then sharing their findings, providing short and long-term solutions to various problems.

The topics were: Opiate Addiction, Oceans, Plastics and Overfishing, Teenage Suicide, Artificial Intelligence, Reducing Carbon Footprint, Gene Therapy, Improving Foster Care, Human Trafficking, Reproductive Health for Women, Fake News, Mass Extinction of Insects

This year all of the RTC teams worked online in May using technology to generate awareness through interactive Zoom presentations which included: videos, websites, gofundme campaigns, and a feminine hygiene product drive. Peers, teachers, and family members were able to participate in the 20-minute presentations on June 1.

Special thanks to the following speakers (among others) who met with students via Zoom during our intensive weeks: Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (District 58), Amy Errett (Madison Reed), Dutta Satadip (Pinterest), Lisa Craig (Matter of Trust), Marty Bennett (Pioneer Technical Services) Attorney Gywn Thiessen (Former Hamlin Parent), and Attorney Amy Stoll (Current Hamlin Parent).

Grade 7 Westward Road Trip Via Zoom

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Grade 7 students have been studying westward expansion. To better get to know our United States, they designed and mapped out their very own modern road trips. As part of the journey students did the following:

-Picked a theme (historical sites, mountains, rivers, cities, national parks, concert venues, restaurants etc.)

-Selected a specific vehicle for the road trip: Van, SUV, Camper Bus, etc.

-Started anywhere on the east coast, travelled up to 300 miles a day, described the route with a map and directions, ending on the west coast

-Explained one specific historical event associated with each stop. Examples: battle sites, city origin stories, birthplaces of famous Americans, information about Native American groups that lived in that area, etc.

-Shared one fun activity they participated in during each stop

-Created an original road trip song

Students uploaded beautiful photos and worked on their road trips in Zoom break out rooms. The final projects were presented live and received “real time” positive peer feedback.

Makers Create Inventions At Home

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Mr. Louie’s Grade 7 students have been busy making various functional projects. They have been working with: Rube Goldberg Machines, LED Circuit Cards, and Cardboard Hats.

A Rube Goldberg Machine is something intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and overly complicated way. Among other tasks, students developed elaborate ways to turn off lights using dominoes, weights, and rolling balls.

Students used LED Circuit Cards designed to light up photos of loved ones with the push of a button.

Students also creatively designed Cardboard Hats painted to express artistic whimsy and individuality.

Grade 7 Makes COVID-19 Time Capsules

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We are living in historic times. With this in mind, Grade 7 students are documenting these days of quarantine to help inform their future selves. Using a written and visual format, students are recording several aspects of their current lives.

Some of the items students are putting in their time capsules are:

-Favorite things in their 2020 lives- pets, books, movies, friends

-Artistic creations, photos from this time, newspaper clippings, special memories

-Descriptions of how they are feeling and what they are learning from this experience

-Descriptions of their local community and how it has been impacted by COVID-19

-Descriptions of how they are continuing to have fun

-Descriptions of how special occasions are being celebrated- birthdays, Passover, Easter, etc.

–A Letter To Self, imparting wisdom to remember (likely) emphasizing gratitude, patience, and other intrinsic lessons from this time period

Hamlin Makes Face Shields For Local Health Personnel

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Hamlin has connected with other Bay Area Makers to 3D print PPE (protective personal equipment) Face Shield visors for our local health personnel working on the frontlines fighting COVID-19. They need as many shields as possible and we have risen to the challenge! One Hamlin parent, (Alex Belenson P ’23) even started a gofundme campaign and raised enough funds to purchase additional 3D printers to ramp up production and enough PLA filament to print the visors 24/7 for months to come. We are currently able to produce 9 visors a day.

Amanda Sammann, a trauma surgeon at UCSF/SF General and Director of the Better Lab, has approved the PPE Face Shield known as the Budmen design and is accepting them.

We are obviously not capable of sterile manufacturing but we do our best to ensure we don’t spread anything by removing the model from the 3D printer while wearing gloves and a mask and inserting the printed model into a plastic bag.

The first batch of 50 completed face shields was delivered last week to UCSF/SFGeneral emergency room. Special thanks to Diego Fonstad, Founder of Lectrify.it for connecting Hamlin to this meaningful project.

-Guest blog by Brian Louie (Hamlin Design and Maker Teacher)

More about our Maker Program at Hamlin:

The Hamlin School Maker Program is designed to deliver moments of impact where girls engage in real world problem solving through Human Centered Design Thinking. Students become problem seekers, focusing on community empathy and collaboration, using ongoing client feedback to drive the direction of their projects. Through their Maker work, our girls work diligently with tools, while developing a new lens by which to see possibility, adaptation, and innovation.

Raising Trout in Lower School Science

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Lower school students are learning about the fragile lifecycle of fish through their participation in a program called Trout in the Classroom.

Trout in the Classroom is a community-based program which allows students to experience first hand the delicate balance needed for animals to survive in aquatic ecosystems. Using eggs provided by a hatchery, classes set-up and maintain an aquarium for the purpose of observing the development of fish from the eyed-egg stage until they become young fry. Students engage in a course of study which supports the learning experience across curriculum area. This program is run cooperatively by local schools, fishing clubs and government agencies.

Objectives:

-Provide a positive learning program for classrooms on the value of aquatic ecosystems through the hatching and release of trout.

-Help students learn about their local watershed and how human activities affect the quality of water in local streams, lakes and the bay.

The 50 healthy trout eggs were received (two have died) and will hatch in the coming days. Once hatched, the fish will have their pure spring water changed twice a week, with a carefully monitored feeding schedule. Throughout the process students will see firsthand the various life stages of the trout as they move from embryonic, to hatching, to larval, to becoming juveniles.

On March 27 students are planning to go to Lake Merced in San Francisco to release the trout.

To learn more about this program, please visit: https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/CAEP/R3

Making A Skateboard

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Grade 8 students have the opportunity to take a Maker elective class. This class is hands-on, dynamic, and fun. Students are able to use an assortment of materials to design and construct various creations.

Lexie made a skateboard for her project. She has been skating since she was 4 and has gone to skateboarding camps. Lexie has done ramp and street skating, but now mostly uses her boards to cruise around. She loved making the skateboard, but said that the hardest part was screwing in the trucks so that the wheels were perfectly aligned.

To learn more about our Maker Program, please visit

https://www.hamlin.org/program/technology-and-innovation/maker-program

 

Grade 2 Makes A Newspaper

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Students in Grade 2 recently created an original newspaper. The newspaper features eclectic offerings including the following sections: Book Reviews, Opinions, Travel, and Education.

Below is the text of an opinion piece by Sammie entitled, Saving Our Planet and Animals.

Dear My Saver,

Animals around the world have been having their habitats cut down or being destroyed. And to help i think we can not use plastic, stop cutting down trees, and try being less wasteful and compost. Just imagine one of your favorite animals being extinct! And what if many animals at once go extinct! Climate change is making our planet too hot! Our planet has not been treated properly and I think that there is a way that us people can help save our planet. You can help too! Help by using less plastic! Soon there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. Now you go out and get a reusable water bottle and use less plastic!!

When asked about writing a newspaper, one student shared:

It feels good and exciting because I get to share my writing with everyone in the world and they get to learn about why I love writing.

Grade 3: California Painting and Poetry

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I am big and strong
I hold up the snow
Up Up Up

I provide water
Growing crops
Helping California

I smell fresh
The mist blowing overhead

I am the princess of the sky
My tips pointed up

I am still
Solid stone

I am thunder
Water trickling down me

I am nature’s wonderland
Full of beautiful plants

I have great big
Snowpacks

I am born
Of rocks

I am Sierra

-Leah

Grade 5 Creates Human Emotion Personality Profiles

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Grade 5 recently did a creative writing exercise based on Ruth Gendler’s Book of Qualities. With a partner, students created a “human personality profile” of a feeling. The collaborative thinking helped girls to better understand the nuances within moods and feelings.