West Geauga High School students Timothy Clouser, Jill Jevnikar, Kaden Knake and Maggie Tim will be participating in the Beachwood Arts Council’s Ileen Kelner Juried High School Art Show.
Students Exhibit Artistic Flair
West Geauga High School students Timothy Clouser, Jill Jevnikar, Kaden Knake and Maggie Tim will be participating in the Beachwood Arts Council’s Ileen Kelner Juried High School Art Show.
The community is welcome to join at the opening reception and awards program on Feb. 11 from 2-4:30 p.m. at the Beachwood Community Center, 25225 Fairmount Blvd., Beachwood. The awards program begins at 3 p.m.
Eight top awards will be announced during the reception and winners will receive cash prizes. In addition, all exhibiting students in attendance will be acknowledged for their participation.
STEM Program Challenge
With the advances in technology, more and more employers are looking for students who have experience in STEM subjects. West Geauga’s Program Challenge, led by Anna Laubscher, is helping her elementary students to incorporate these subjects from a young age.
Said Laubscher, “Students are learning about surface tension. In the third-grade curriculum, we focus on properties of matter. This will help them when they study matter again in sixth grade.”
One experiment involved putting drops of water on a penny to see how even though the penny was full of water, it continued to hold more water by creating a bubble shape because of surface tension.
There were some follow up activities for the activity as well, including putting a screen on a jar of water and flipping it upside down. This is a beginning step of building on a high school concept of molecular polarity and while those words aren’t used in third grade, the basic concept is introduced.
Astronomy at Westwood Elementary
The Geauga Park District graciously sent volunteers to Westwood Elementary School to teach the fifth-graders all about astronomy.
The Binocular Program has been sponsored by the Geauga Park District for students in Geauga county for the last 15 years. Westwood Elementary was one of the first schools to be involved when the program was initiated in 2003.
The students were able to go into the stardome and learn about the 88 constellations along with discussing the different characteristics of the stars and planets.
The experience-based astronomy program is one of the many classes put on throughout the year that align with the state science standards for fifth grade and help students to be ready for more advanced science topics in the middle school and high school.
