By Mrs. Malak Charara, Science and Electives Teacher:

In Science, Grade 7 students continued their investigations about changes that happen on a particles level when matter is heated or cooled. Through their lab experiments, they were able to observe changes in temperature and learned how to calculate the changes in thermal energy in calories, taking into account the mass and change in temperature of that matter. They also understood the criteria and constraints when it comes to engineering designs of thermoses that keep our beverages hot and double-paned windows to keep buildings warm during winter.

In Elective Nutrition, Grade 7 students learned about factors that affect their daily needs of nutrients and how much of each food category their body needs through MyPlate. We discussed ways to include more fruits and vegetables in their meals and snacks. They also learned how to calculate the amount of added sugar in pre-made and bought food and assess how much in percentage it takes from their healthy carbohydrate daily needs. Students were able to identify the snack/food that they need to eat less from to minimize added sugar consumption. Remember, cutting down added sugars completely is not a realistic goal for our teenagers, yet reducing it with time and helping them choose better options for their sweet tooth from natural resources is.

Grade 7 students presenting their assignment to research different types of oats on the market in terms of production and glycemic index per serving:

In Biology, Grade 9 students started with a new unit this month to study about global populations and ecosystems. We investigated energy flow and cycling of elements and matter through the four spheres we have on Earth (atmosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere). Students also studied about communities and ecosystems’ dynamics that help us understand the relationship between organisms among each other and the effect of biotic and abiotic factors in their environments on them, as well as factors that limit the growth of populations and its relation to extinction of species.

In Mathematics, grade 7 students learned how to simplify and use ratios of two or more quantities, they also studied rate and speed. Later students practiced unit conversions and applied the acquired knowledge to solve real-world problems involving ratio, rate, and speed. Students also learned about percentages and how to solve problems involving percentage increase or decrease. Their knowledge in percentages was extended to understanding the math behind discounts and sales tax in a percent shopping project, where each student created their own shop sale poster and calculated their own bill after sales tax and discounts. Lastly our students started recalling basic geometry concepts and applied new theorems to solve problems.

In Geometry, grade 9 students continued learning about congruence in right triangles and applied congruence criteria in problems involving overlapping and multiple triangles. Later students extrapolated their knowledge in special segments in triangles (like bisectors, medians and altitudes) to investigate the characteristics of their points of concurrencies. They learned how to locate and construct the circumcenter, incenter, centroid and orthocenter, and decide which point of concurrency is needed to solve a specific problem. Students also identified the relationships between angle measures and side lengths in triangles after addressing inequality theorems. Lastly our students moved on to investigating the interior and exterior angles of polygons, examining properties of kites and trapezoids, and then differentiating the properties and conditions of parallelograms and special parallelograms. These properties were used to implement a STEM project: building a parallelogram hydraulic lift.

By Br. Yusuf Ali, English, History, and Social Studies Teacher:

In social studies, the 7th graders completed their study of Unit 2: Islam in Medieval Times and Unit 3: The Culture and Kingdoms of West Africa. Each student volunteered to study one of the topics in each unit and prepare lessons and quizzes on their topics. They presented their lessons to the rest of the class and assessed their classmates’ learning using their quizzes.

In the 9th grade world history course, the students have completed their study of Unit 3: The First Global Age, with lessons on early modern tranformations in different societies and regions of the globe, including the Muslim world, China, western Europe, and the Americas. Some of the topics included European colonialism and the globalization of trade and commerce.

In English, both classes have begun novel units. The 7th graders are reading The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain and 9th grade is reading A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. We completed the grammar unit on the ten sentence patterns of the English language and are not continuing with a study of the different types of clauses and phrases.