Gifted Jaguars and Eagles

On May 29th the Dimensions Academy High School STEM program had Shane Wood do physics enrichment with our students. Wood  does education outreach in particle physics, introducing teachers and students to data from large international experiments at Fermilab (near Chicago) and CERN (near Geneva, Switzerland). It was fun to see students calculate physics using real life data! Topics covered are explained here .  

The Gifted and Talented Department will be hosting a coffee and conversation with parents/guardians in Meredith Aby-Keirstead's classroom (C101 at Kennedy High School) on Friday, May 31st from 7:50-8:50 to get parent feedback about how the pilot of AP Human Geography/AP Comparative Politics went with your student this year.  This is our first year doing this and we welcome your feedback.   If you cannot come but want to still give us your feedback feel free to email us at maby@isd271.org or at eboltik@isd271.org.

On May 21, 2019 I took 9th and 10th graders in the Dimensions Academy High School STEM program and Humanities pilot  to Macalester College for a field trip.  The trip is a part of their investigation into college options and follows up on a winter trip to the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities.  It was really fun to see my alma mater through my students' eyes.  

Bloomington students earn top scores on ACT Published on May 16, 2019 Kennedy High School junior Jordan Thomson and Jefferson High School juniors Ryan Cole, Colden Longley and Christopher Melville earned perfect scores on the ACT. On average, less than one-tenth of one percent of students taking the ACT earn a top score of 36. Thomson participates in cross country, track, Quiz Bowl, climbing club and Ignite Mentorship. He is captain of the math team and earned a Science Olympiad state first place medal. He maintains a 4.27 GPA and is an AP Scholar with Honor. He plans to pursue a career in engineering. Cole plays trumpet in Jefferson’s marching band, pep band and jazz band and participates in Boy Scouts, and B.A.A. baseball and basketball. He plans to study engineering and computer science in college. Longley participates on the math team, Quiz Bowl, cross country, Nordic skiing and track. He is an AP Scholar with Honor and maintains a 4.39 GPA. He plans to pursue a major

This was one of my favorite quotes, "Many gifted children struggle with failure. The trouble, Kendall explains, is that if you’re known for being a brainbox you don’t have to try, and so don’t build up resilience. She works with many bright children who “won’t put pen to paper”. At workshops she runs for gifted children, the kids sometimes play Twister, a game where players contort themselves over a mat covered with coloured dots. “They’re in hysterics,” Kendall says. “You can’t get it right so you’re teaching them to do something just for the joy of it.” https://www.1843magazine.com/features/the-curse-of-genius

The following students have completed the Dimensions Academy High School program, a partnership between Normandale Community College and Bloomington Public Schools, and have successfully earned 35 credits in rigorous STEM coursework. We recognized them at a graduation ceremony last night at Normandale. Tuan Dinh         Serena French Dagen Gellerman Andrew Griesel Dominick Heston Riley Mathiasen Gavin Meier      Emileo Peralto Jackson Schwarz       Victoria Sigfrid Thomas Starks        David Swanson Ashley Zielinski-Schloegel

US News and World Report released their 2019 rankings recently and Jefferson moved into the top 20 in the state! These rankings focus mostly on academics and college readiness. Another item to consider is that US News greatly revised their ranking and data systems, which almost doubled the amount of schools they measured so moving into the top 20 is doubly impressive.  https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/minnesota/rankings

Kids need more sleep - shocker!  No really we need to help kids get balance.  Here are some articles I've been reading that get me thinking about what teenagers need from us as parents and as teachers: Give Teens More Downtime and Support with Time Management Making SEL More Relevant to Teens Here's What Teens Say They Need 4 Must-Haves for Positive Teacher-Teen Relationships

Congratulations to Colden Longley for earnin g  first place in the spring and 3 rd  place for the cumulative year-long score in the American Mathematical Association of Two Year Colleges (AMATYC) exam at Normandale!  Colden is a DAHS STEM graduate and a junior at Jefferson High School.