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7th GRADE NEWS
In Social Studies they have continued their study of the West African civilizations of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. In this study they learned about silent barter, a form of trade that took place without speaking. They have also learned that sometimes, salt is more valuable than gold.
You never know what kind of wounds will cause the greatest damage. An argument with a friend can cause as much pain as a broken leg. Likewise, a physical injury can also scar the spirit. In the short story "Zebra", the 7th grade read about a boy their age who needed to heal both his body and his mind.
Our 7th graders are beginning an Earth and Space unit involving the Moon, the Earth, and Sun. We started this unit by watching the recently celebrated 50th anniversary of American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin Apollo 11 Moon landing.. We combined a little history, and discussed the 1960's space race in which the United States and the Soviet Union battled each other scientifically to be the first to put a man on the Moon. We discussed that 20 percent of the world's population were tuned in that day to watch history being made, and listened to the immortal words of Neil Armstrong. "That's one small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind."
Students in grade seven are continuing their study of social justice through the book Henry David Thoreau Bell Ringer for Justice and advancing their writing skills. The seventh graders are focusing on the Catholic Social Justice Principle of Respect for Creation. Throughout the past three years, students have been learning about Thoreau’s love and respect for nature, so students are working on an MLA research paper that focuses on a problem that affects our global environment. This is an interdisciplinary project that not only involves the writing of the research paper but also other assignments from other teachers. Some topics include how the loss of birds can affect the wetland environment, global warming and its effects, oil spills and their effect on oceans, reforestation, wildfires and their effect on woodland communities, and the use of DDT and pesticides. This is part of project based learning, which also relates to our STREAM classes. Students will create a final project, which will involve discovering the amount of money it would take to rectify the problem they researched in the environment.
Finally in Math 7th grade is just finishing a chapter on percents and will be doing rational number arithmetic next. We will also do a short section on cost benefit analysis which will apply to a project they are doing in all classes.
