Physics Study Group - Changes in Structure

The Physics Study Group seems to be going well at this point, as we continue to work as a group answering example IB questions. However, I still believe that it could be more effective. Originally, the main goal of the group was to prepare Physics students for the IB exam. However, we are all concerned about our current grades in the class, and we often feel unprepared for tests and uncertain about homework. As such, I think that we may want to shift the focus towards group discussions regarding what we feel we need to improve on, and then address those issues to the best of our abilities at each meeting. Once we improve our grades as a group, we should be able to more efficiently prepare for our exams in the Spring.

Model UN - Practice Debate

The Model United Nations group met for about an hour and a half today after school. The primary purpose of this meeting was to hold a practice debate, in order to prepare us for the trip to New York next year. The topic of our debate was whether or not Guantanamo should be closed or left open. There were not many people at the meeting, so the debate did not move as quickly as we had hoped. However, it seemed to be a good start, and the idea of practicing debates seems like it could be very helpful. We spent the rest of the meeting trying to organize the group so that we could meet more effectively. I suggested the idea of providing people with packets of information about the topics of the debates before the debates themselves actually take place, so that we will all know what we are talking about at each meeting. The group seemed to agree that this was a good idea. However, we had some trouble determining which days are best for after school meetings, because this is a very busy time of the year. Despite these problems, the group seems very determined to succeed in its preparations.

Physics Study Group - SAT Review

The last Physics Study was spent going over material that some students would need to know for the Subject SAT in Physics. This material included the concept of relativity, which we had only just started to learn, but was likely to be on the test. The group was larger than normal this time, and other students, who were working on labs at the time, contributed to the discussion as well.

I am not sure how successful this meeting was towards the goal of helping students do well on their SATs; it is a complicated subject, and we did not have much time to learn it. Also, I am concerned that not everyone in the group completely understands what we are learning. I hope that I will be able to find a way for the material to be effectively communicated so that everyone can understand it.

Physics Study Group - Review

It has been difficult to organize the Physics Study Group recently - the Senior class is very busy at this time of year, making it hard for everyone to find the time to meet for Physics. However, the group is still meeting on Tuesdays at lunch when possible. We spent this week's meeting reviewing topics we learned last year. I thought this was very helpful for keeping the material fresh in our minds. Hopefully more members of the group will be able to come next week, when we will be going over topics that will appear on the upcoming Physics Subject SAT.

Physics Study Group - Second Meeting

The Physics Study Group was very successful in its second meeting. We had a total of six students show up to review IB questions and the material we have been learning in class. The turnout was much better than that of the first meeting, in which there were only three students in the room at any given time. This could be contributed to a couple of different reasons. Firstly, I tried to spread the word about the group to the Standard Level Physics class, because only Higher Level students came to the first meeting. Secondly, I ordered two pizzas for the group to share while we worked together, providing extra incentive for people to come while at the same time adding a little more of a fun and relaxed feeling to the whole experience. Everybody contributed to the review or had questions to ask, so the meeting was very productive. Next time, I will try to plan ahead and prepare questions of my own for the group to solve.

Creative Writing - First Meeting

The Creative Writing Club recently met for the first time of this school year. This meeting was basically and introduction to what we would be doing and how the group would be organized. We discussed what we did last year with our usual meetings, as well as with the creation of The Sturgian, the school's literature journal. I am hoping to be able to do some creative writing of my own this year, so that I can have something to contribute to the group.

Physics Study Group - First Meeting

The Physics study group that I have been organizing met for the first time yesterday. The goal of the group is to gain a better understanding of Physics as a science and make sure that students are prepared for the IB exam. For the first meeting, Mr. Patterson, who is supervising the group, supplied us with some questions that we could expect to see from the IB, and we were able to work as a group to answer different parts of the questions until the subject matter began to make sense to all of us. Unfortunately, many people were unable to come to the first meeting, and I think that others were unaware that it was happening. I think that what we are doing could potentially be very helpful, but I may need to do more to get the word out about it for next week's meeting.

Hiking - Wellfleet to Truro

The most recent hike that I participated in was a walk from Wellfleet to Truro. The group met in a parking lot near a beach in Wellfleet to get organized before we started moving. Our usual guide had been injured recently, so he was unable to join us. Because of this, we had to find our own way to the destination. This was very interesting, as it was the first time I had ever needed to use a map and compass. Not all the paths were clearly marked on the map, so we had to be constantly aware of where we were going. At first it was foggy out, but the weather was nice overall as we hiked through the woods and across cliffs overlooking the beaches. However, as we got back onto the roads, it started to rain heavily. It eventually became very uncomfortable, and it was a little overwhelming to have to make sure that we would not get lost while we were getting soaked, especially knowing that we still had a long distance to go. As difficult and tiring as it was, we were able to make it to Truro, a fact that greatly increased my awareness of my ability to persevere in things that I set out to do.

Pictures:

Some kind of tower we found toward the end of the hike. None of us knew what it was used for.

Views from the cliffs:

Trip to Abbey Kelley Foster Charter School- Reflection

On August 20th I traveled to Worcester with a group of Sturgis students who had volunteered to speak to a class at Abbey Kelly Foster Charter School. This school has decided to adopt the International Baccalaureate program, so it was hoping that we would be able to help its students understand what they would be doing for their Junior and Senior years of high school. When we arrived at the school, we had lunch in the cafeteria with the students who would be participating in the IB program. We introduced ourselves to them then and got to know them a little better. They seemed to be genuinely interested in the IB, and they had plenty of questions to ask us. After lunch, we moved to a lecture hall where we could more formally speak to them about their future education. The subjects of the discussion ranged from basic information about CAS, Internal Assessments and the Extended Essays to what we think about our education so far and what advice we would give to people interested in the program. Some of the advice we gave was to resist putting off work and to keep trying no matter how difficult school becomes. The students and teachers of Abbey Kelly Foster Charter School thanked us for taking the time to come speak to them, and they seemed to be very excited and even a little nervous about what they would be doing next year. I felt that we gave them the best advice we could give, and I think that they should be more prepared for the IB now. I also think that I, along with the other Sturgis students, gained a better understanding of our own education, having described our experiences to others for the first time. Because this was the first time I have done something like this, this activity was a new challenge for me. It was difficult trying to put my feelings about my education into words, but I am glad that I was able to do so, as it was very revealing to myself in addition to being hopefully helpful to the other students. Also, I often do not speak as much as I would like to, so talking to these people felt very helpful towards developing the skill of communicating with large groups of people. I am very glad that I went on this trip. The people at Abbey Kelly Foster Charter School seemed very nice and I am sure that they will make the most of their IB education.

Global Poverty and Solutions- Solutions Part 1

8/16/09
This week we began to discuss some of the possible solutions to global poverty. Much of this discussion was centered around energy poverty. A lack of accessible energy seems to be the root of almost all other types of poverty. Because of this, figuring out how to connect the world to a clean reliable, and abundant power source should be an important step towards eliminating extreme poverty. Many countries that have only recently been developed seem to want what they see as "the American lifestyle." However, it is important that these countries leapfrog directly into the most modern technology, rather than following the same model that we went through. We also talked about the social effects of oil as a source of energy. These effects seem to be generally negative today, as oil has been fueling petro-dicatorships in some areas and slowing down progression toward more efficient types of energy. I am not sure yet if there is much that I can do as an individual to help end energy poverty, but I am looking forward to learning more about solutions in next week's class.

Global Poverty and Solutions- Millennium Development Goals

8/9/09
Today I learned about the Millennium Development Goals, a set of eight goals established in order to improve conditions in developing countries. These include:

1. Decreasing poverty and hunger
2. Universal primary education
3. Gender equality/empowerment
4. Decreasing child mortality
5. Improving maternal health
6. Combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and others
7. Environmental sustainability
8. Global partnership

We also discussed the possibility of a water crisis. There seems to be an increasing scarcity of fresh water in many parts of the world, and this is made worse by various factors, such as the production of many types of food and biofuels, which require a lot of water to make. Many plants that developing countries export require large amounts of water to grow, meaning that they are virtually exporting the water that they need.
Today's class has further increased my awareness of my responsibilities as a person and our responsibilities as a country, informing me of how the world hopes to approach global development and what people can do to help achieve these goals.

Global Poverty and Solutions- Extreme Poverty

8/2/09
This week we identified our current goal as ending extreme poverty, rather than ending poverty altogether. Trying to fight poverty itself is likely to be unsuccessful, but eliminating extreme poverty, in which people live on less than a dollar a day, should help greatly improve the standard quality of life around the world. We also revisited our discussion about misconceptions, concluding that not all of the issues related to poverty can be linked to one thing, such as the type of government that controls a country. For example, one popular thought seems to have been that if a developing country is made into a democracy, poverty in that country will be eliminated. This has proven to be false, as poverty leads to poor governance instead of poor governance leading to poverty. It is also important for developed nations to trust that developing countries are not too corrupt to put money to good use. Now that I have become more aware of misconceptions like these, I realize that it is my responsibility to make sure that I avoid them and keep a more open mind about the state of the world and how it might be able to improve.

Global Poverty and Solutions- Misconceptions

7/26/09
Last week the teacher of the class was not able to be there. Rather than canceling the group's second meeting, we had a substitute who showed us the movie Slumdog Millionaire, which portrays conditions of extreme poverty in India. The film was very interesting and we spent some time discussing it in class this week. After this, we talked about the misconceptions that people often have about developing countries. For example, people might mistakenly believe that developing nations suffer extreme poverty because they are lazy, because of their different cultures. Another misconception is that other countries are growing at our expense. In fact, the entire world is growing, but some areas are not growing as quickly as others. Because of this, the world must work together as a whole in order to improve conditions globally.

Global Poverty and Solutions- Introduction

7/12/09
Today was the first day of this summer's High School Studies Program (HSSP) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. The course that I am taking in this program is called How to Change the World: Global Poverty and Solutions. Every Sunday morning until the end of August, I will be traveling two hours from my home to MIT, where I will meet with a group of students who share an interest in learning about and finding solutions to poverty throughout the world. For our first class, we discussed the basic idea of the course and learned some background information that helped us understand the state the world is in today. Much of this focused on the factors that have separated different regions in history in terms of poverty, as well as what nations have been wealthier in the past and which ones will be wealthier in the future. The class seems to be more based around discussion than around lectures, and we were encouraged to keep up with the news so that we could have more to discuss in the future.
So far I am really enjoying the program, and I believe that it is entirely worth the time and the amount of traveling it takes to get there. I feel like I have already learned much about poverty, and I am looking forward to hearing about some possible solutions to the problem.

Creative Writing- Poetry

The Creative Writing group was able to see a poet who visited the school for a couple of days. It was interesting to hear someone who had dedicated much of his time to poetry speak about what he does. He presented some of his work, and then included us in an activity which involved each person finishing a different sentence that had been started on a piece of paper. Nobody looked at what was written before his or her turn. Then, when it was finished, we put the sentences together and read everything that was written on the paper as a poem. Naturally, the result did not make much sense, but it was a fun experiment, and it felt worthwhile to hear the guest speak.