Mind Matters

And the results of our runoff vote for community colors and community symbol are in….

The community has decided that our colors will be Navy blue and Seafoam green.

The voting for the community symbol wasn’t as clear, however, ending in a tie. Again!

So rather than having another vote, we will combine the symbols into one. If you would like your idea to be considered, draw a neat, color picture of the Science Penguin symbol. Use our community colors of blue and green in your drawing, and give it to Mr. Smyth before the end of the week. Ideas will get posted on the blog and a final decision will be made next week.

The voting results are in, and we have a decision about one of the three categories. Based on the votes, our community name will be Crater Hills!

Voting results for community name

The results for the other two categories were much closer, and we will hold a run-off election to decide which will be the final choice:

Voting results for community colors

Voting results for community symbol

You may vote here to select your choice. Please vote only once.

As the groups begin doing research on their specialties, I’d like to use our Discussion of the Week question to discuss some of the topics that weren’t selected by a Task Force.

This week, let’s talk about Government. Think about these questions. When you write your response, you can answer just one, or you can answer some or all of them.

• Do we need people to lead our community?
• How many people will lead?
• How will we choose leaders?
• Who will make the rules?
• How will we change the rules if we need to?
• How will we make important decisions for the whole community?
• What will we do if two people disagree about one of the rules?

A cliche, perhaps, but as the leaves change (and as the Phillies make their run for another World Series appearance), there are also some changes coming in the IMG classes at Willow Dale, McDonald, and Longstreth.

I announced a month ago that I would be leaving Centennial to take a position with the Cheltenham School District. I’m pleased to be able to tell you that beginning on November 2, Mr. Dennis Smyth will be taking over the gifted support responsibilities here. I will be with him for two days to help him get oriented and to introduce him to the students and teachers. You will be hearing more from him at that time.

To the students: I will miss each of you very much, and I hope you will continue to do the terrific work you have been doing. I plan to follow your blog, and you may even see a comment of mine from time to time. Dream big dreams, and then pursue them with your whole heart.

To the parents: I want to take this opportunity to publicly say how much I appreciate having had the privilege to teach your children over the last several years. Each one is a treasure that I’m sad but proud to pass on.

I expect to hear great things over the next few weeks and months about what is happening, and I would love to hear from each of you!

One thing that will be very different about our Mars community is that we will be selecting just 100 people to go along. If we were to do this project in real life, there would probably be thousands of people interested in coming. In class we are talking about the criteria we will use to select which of those thousands get to join us. We’re designing a 3-step process to decide which people go:

1. Application form
2. Essay question
3. Interview

Some people might think this isn’t a fair way to choose, though. Another way to decide might be to pick 100 names randomly from the list of interested people.

What do you think? Is our 3-step selection process fair? Do you think choosing randomly is better? Or is there a third way that would work best? Explain why you think so.

I’d like to introduce two “virtual student teachers” who will be joining us from the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada: Ms. Kelsey Bugera and Mr. Michael Head. They are taking a course called “Computers in the Classroom” taught by Dean Shareski. Ms. Bugera and Mr. Head will both be telling you soon about themselves. You can look forward to seeing their responses and comments to our blog, and they will also begin getting involved in our Mars project in various ways.

Please feel free to say hello to them and welcome them to our class!

The first phase of our Imagine Mars unit involves reflecting about the community in which we live. Before we can plan a community for other people who will live on another planet, we need to understand what makes something a community. Think about these questions, then add your comments at the bottom. Don’t try to answer them all—these are just to get you thinking! We would love to have input from parents and visitors as well: the more ideas we have, the better we can make our Mars colony.

• What makes a community?
• What do I value about my community?
• Do residents have responsibilities?
• How is it designed?
• Why is it unique?
• What’s good about living there?
• How would I describe my community to others?

Tags: community, Mars

Since the wiki and blog sites are new this year, a few people have been having trouble getting in, and some are anxious about finishing the assignments. Don’t panic! Until I know everyone is able to log in and access the site without difficulty, I’m not worrying about keeping up. In fact, I’m giving a second week for the first response while we start in on this week’s question.

If all else fails, please do contact me! You can do so through the contact form on this site, or my school district email address.

Each week I will be posting a discussion topic here for our class to think and comment about. Often it will be related to something we are working on in class. Sometimes it will be about a topic in the news or in our community. Sometimes it might just be something we find interesting and want to explore.

Since the discussion is aimed at getting students thinking about these things in lots of different ways, we welcome comments from parents, teachers, and other friends who read our blog. Feel free to add your thoughts, since that gives us more to share and discuss!

This week our topic is Mars. NASA is currently planning a manned mission to the Red Planet. Some people agree we should do this, but others think it is a bad idea. What do you think? Why? Post your thoughts in the comments. Students, be sure to respond with your own ideas, but also respond to at least one other person’s comment.

Tags: Mars, NASA, space travel

Just a quick note to let parents and students know that the IMG schedule will begin on Monday, September 14. Check the Schedule page in our class wiki to see when your class will meet and when I will be in your homeroom.

If you haven’t already done so, don’t forget to read the Discussion Question of the Week and start posting your comments. I hope we have several of these we can read in class to continue the conversation.