High Schools

Arlington Mill Technology Project

Lisa Pellegrino’s HILT technology students are conducting an online career research project to teach the class about a chosen career. The students must write about their personal interest, the education required to work in the particular field, salary, work location, special tools and clothes associated with the career, high school classes to take to prepare, and additional websites for further information. Students with higher language proficiency will interview a professional in the field and include a write-up of the interview.

Wakefield Biology

Wakefield ninth grade biology classes are currently studying human anatomy and physiology. This unit includes a rat dissection as rats are also mammals. This opportunity will allow students to see the position of the bones they learn, including how the bones connect, what ligaments and tendons look like. They also will be able to identify the position of the major internal organs they learn about during previous classes. Students will focus on the skeletal system with the position of bones and the function of the connective tissues. The major types of joints in the body with specific examples of each type. They learn how these joints are different from each other and how they function.

Career Center Forensics

In Forensic Technology at the Career Center, students are analyzing blood spatter, and making personal sets of blood angle cards to use in the future. They are also watching a piece of decaying meat outside everyday so they can see the progress of decomposition. Students will measure the ambient temperature, the time of day, the conditions (humid, sunny, rainy), the time since the meat was place outside (time since death), and the temperature of the interior of the meat (the maggot mass).

Wakefield AP Writing Workshops

Michael Lutz’s senior AP English students at Wakefield are conducting a series of writing workshops in which they compose autobiographical essays to be read aloud to their peers. The class, in turn, provides specific constructive criticism, which allows the writer to go back to the drawing board and to revise. Students undergo this process two to three times, and for many this is the first actual, real revision process that they have experienced. Due to the rigors and constraints of the school year, unfortunately many students are on the treadmill of deadlines and what they think is revision is actually editing and proofreading, not actual revision. The product is often the best writing that the kids have ever produced. Additionally, students take over the class to set up the procedural rules of publication and the organizational logistics. They have a heightened sense of ownership and accountability.

Washington-Lee Children’s Books

Washington-Lee Spanish IB students had to create a children’s book from scratch. They wrote a short story, illustrated it, and created a hand puppet to go with it. They put together the book with numbered pages, and an illustrated hard cover. They presented it to their classmates using their puppet for dramatization. Additional activites will be added daily.