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Term 1 Quest Descriptions:

Humanities quests:

What’s my Story?

6th Grade

Guide: Michael Fisher

In this quest, 6th graders will dive into the art of personal narrative writing, framing their own stories through the craft of creative non-fiction. We will draw on aspects of our social identities and personal experiences, and we will practice drafting through multiple writing stages. Students will also practice peer review and revision, which will lead to a final piece they submit for our online gallery at the end of the term.

Who Deserves a State?

7th Grade

Guide: Simon Olavarría

Students will explore whether Washington, DC, should become the 51st state of the United States of America. We will explore political equality and the concessions our federal system of government can demand in favor of stability and security. Finally, we will hold a series of formal debates in which students will represent current political actors to settle this question one way or another.

Can We Play With History?

8th Grade

Guide: Annika Bhasavanich

In this Quest, students will explore the topic of historiography, or how history gets written and often changed over time. After choosing and researching a historical time period or topic, students will craft their own narrative of this history by interpreting and connecting what they believe to be the most important events of that period. For their final project, students will design, in groups, a miniature golf course based on the story they want to tell (inspired by the Boom & Bust Course located in Mission Bay). Each group will choose one of their designs to build in conjunction with their STEM Quest, uniting both engineering and historical principles in the process.

STEM QuEsts:

How Can Technology Help the World?

6th Grade

Guide: Abigail Henderson

In this technology-themed STEM Quest, students will explore everything from AI programs that improve people's mental health to assistive technologies that make websites and apps accessible to all. Throughout the term, we will also become email penpals with technology "experts" in the field, learning more about careers in technology while also practicing proper email format. Meanwhile, we will be learning the basics of coding using the programming language Python, and the culmination will involve coding our very own chatbots to help the world!

Can We Prevent Natural Disasters?

7th Grade

Guide: Lindsay Berk

In this Quest we are taking on the question "Can we prevent natural hazards from becoming natural disasters?" The quest will culminate in a Natural Disaster Innovation Fair, where students will present research and an innovative solution to help a specific community during a natural disaster. Additionally, students will build and program LEGO Mindstorms robots to accomplish missions during a final robotics competition on a playing field, simulating a natural disaster relief effort. Along the way students will learn about the movement of water through our geosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere, as well as how to predict weather patterns and explain regional climate trends and severe weather events.

Can We Engineer the Way We Tell History?

8th Grade

Guide: Taylor Miles

In conjunction with the "Can we play with history?" quest, students will decide on a historical period or topic and leverage engineering design principles to construct miniature golf courses. Students will explore the engineering design process and apply each step while creating historically inspired structures. Students will conduct research, make blueprints, and test and improve their original designs in teams. All teams will present their final projects at the conclusion of Term 1.

Term 1 Class Descriptions

(Math, Spanish, PE, & CE)

MATH

Mathematical Expressions 6

Guide: Colleen Erickson

This first term in math, students answered the questions "How do we ‘math’ at Millennium?.” Along with learning what it means to be a mathematician (noticing, describing and generalizing patterns) the students began developing a growth mindset. They flexed their problem solving muscles and realized that struggle is a vital component to learning math. The also experienced what it feels like to be part of a community of learners, gaining insight from and with each other. The main curriculum we delved into was geometry (graphing shapes and finding areas) as well as being able to use ratios and proportions appropriately and accurately. Students had lots of opportunities to challenge themselves with optional extension opportunities (like Parallel, Exploding Dots, Polyup, Khan Academy, Art of Problem Solving, and more!) during our Google inspired, self-directed 20% Time™. Above all, students began to view mathematics not just as a fixed set of facts to learn, but a playful, creative, worthwhile human endeavor.

Math 7

Guide: Colleen Erickson

This term in Math 7, students built off of the skills they developed in Math 6 last year, while continuing to solve more challenging problems. They continued to recognize connections between 2D and 3D worlds, worked to construct figures to scale, and explored circles and their mysterious formulas. They answered questions like "What does the 2D slice of a cone look like?" and "Where does pi come from?" all while solving algebraic equations involving the many types of angles encountered in geometry. And through it all they worked to sharpen their mathematical practices. Students had lots of opportunities to challenge themselves with optional extension opportunities (like Parallel, Exploding Dots, Polyup, Khan Academy, Art of Problem Solving, and more!) during our Google inspired, self-directed 20% Time™. Above all, students began to view mathematics not just as a fixed set of facts to learn, but a playful, creative, worthwhile human endeavor. Phew!

Math 8 Unit 1: Rigid Transformations

Guide: Taryn Elliott

In our first unit of Math 8, students will investigate translations, rotations, and reflections on the plane, and they will use these transformation to make informal arguments about congruence. They will also explore angle relationships on parallel lines and the triangle sum theorem. As students explore these geometric relationships, they will build their capacity to write mathematical arguments and use precise mathematical vocabulary.

Accelerated Algebra Unit 1: One-Variable Statistics

Guide: Taryn Elliott

In our first unit, we will discuss the difference between statistical and non-statistical questions and classify that data as numerical or categorical. We will represent and interpret data using data displays, and describe distributions using the appropriate terminology. We will also create data displays and calculate summary statistics using technology, then interpret the values in context. Then, we will learn how to interpret standard deviation as a measure of variability in context, how to recognize outliers, investigate their source, make decisions about excluding them from the data set, and understand how the presence of outliers impacts measures of center and measures of variability. In addition, we will compare measures of center and the standard deviation and the interquartile range for different data sets. In the culminating activity, students will pose and answer a statistical question by designing an experiment, collecting data, and analyzing data.

Spanish

Spanish 1 w/ Kyle

6th grade

Spanish 1 students will be learning the alphabet and different letter combinations that will focus on Spanish pronunciation. Students will also practice introductions and greetings with one another. Finally, students will learn numbers 0-30 along with the verb “ser” to tell time. While studying these topics, students will be exploring Hispanic heritage and cultures in the USA in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month.

Spanish 2 w/ Stephanie Ponce or Kyle

6th and 7th grade

Spanish 2 students will be looking closely into classroom and school-related vocabulary, focusing on the vibrant country of Spain. Students will start the term by reviewing the present tense -ar verbs and present tense of “estar”. They will study the numbers 31 and higher.

Spanish 3 w/ Stephanie Ponce

6th, 7th, and 8th grade

Spanish 3 students are going to start the school year driving into the geography of Latin American countries. The students will have the opportunity to celebrate and learn about all the inspirational heroes in honor of Hispanic heritage month. Students will start the term by reviewing ser y estar and practicing transitional expressions.

Physical Expression

Racquet Mania!

Guide: Shawn McCoy

6th, 7th, and 8th grade

The purpose of this unit is to introduce students to the basic skills and knowledge associated with playing a variety of racquet sports such as tennis, badminton and racquetball. Playing these sports will help students develop proper and functional motor skills! Once completing this term, students will be able to pursue playing racquet sports as a life-long activity.

Creative Expression

Creativity

Guide: LaRae Mays-Hardy

This term in Creativity, students will have the opportunity to explore their creativity, various mediums to express it, and how their art can apply to real-world problems. Rooted in our Creative Expression Mission, we start with the knowledge and practice that all students are creative. We understand that creativity includes and expands beyond artistic expression into critical thinking and problem-solving. Students experience activities in community building, understanding art analysis, and explorations in various mediums. The work in this class will lead to a multidisciplinary art project in response to real-world questions or issues. Classes will culminate in the release of a digital gallery to the Millennium community.