Students, be sure to practice your presentations live before the day. Make the topic your own, relax, be confident, and draw the audience in with interesting information! Students who don't feel sure of the value of their message tend to do poorly on presentation day.
As you view the images and video posted here, notice what impresses you and think about how you can make your presentation engaging and educational to the folks who will watch it. Discuss insights and concerns with your mentor. 8th graders, Ms. Gurthie can watch your presentation and give you feedback and tips to improve during your healthy kids if you email her. 7th graders, Ms. Gurthie can help you choose a project close to your heart. Good luck! Be ready to shine and show off your best on the 8th like these students did! More iNformation about the IB MYP 8th Grade CS Project
The inspiration of Community and Service is the belief that each student can contribute to the community and will ask themselves, “How can I make a difference?” To fulfill the MYP IB requirement, 8th grade students are required to complete a Community Project.
The Community Project is an ongoing community service activity where students focus on one area of interest in which they can make a positive impact. Students should choose an area of society in which they have a particular passion to make a difference. Through this MYP community project, students experience the responsibility of completing a significant piece of work over an extended period of time, as well as the need to reflect on their learning and the outcomes of their work—key skills that prepare students for success in further study, the workplace and the community. Piedmont Middle School - an IB world school- is a place where students are challenged to display a sense of social responsibility and global awareness - from the Piedmont IB Community And Service MYP Project page, Karen Gorman and Ronny Reddig, lead teachers. Using the design cycle, the IB Community Project allows students to :
The aims of the MYP projects are to encourage and enable students to:
• participate in a sustained, self-directed inquiry within a global context • generate creative new insights and develop deeper understandings through in-depth investigation • demonstrate the skills, attitudes and knowledge required to complete a project over an extended period of time • communicate effectively in a variety of situations • demonstrate responsible action through, or as a result of, learning • appreciate the process of learning and take pride in their accomplishments MYP Objectives Students must address all strands of all four objectives in the MYP community project. Objective A: Investigating
Objective B: Planning
Objective C: Taking Action
Objective D: Reflecting
The global context chosen by the students provides a context for inquiry and research in the project. Students choose only one global context to define their goal. IDENTITIES AND RELATIONSHIPS Students will explore identity; beliefs and values; personal, physical, mental, social and spiritual health; human relationships including families, friends, communities and cultures; what it means to be human. - Laughter therapy campaign in children’s hospital or elder care home - Tutoring classes providing additional or special instruction to primary school students - Researching the effects of cola drinks on digestion and developing a campaign to promote healthy choices available from school vending machines ORIENTATION IN SPACE AND TIME Students will explore personal histories; homes and journeys; turning points in humankind; discoveries; explorations and migrations of humankind; the relationships between and the interconnectedness of individuals and civilizations from personal, local and global perspectives. - Joining a museum or historical society in the community to contribute to maintaining, restoring, and recovering local history - Making a plan for wheelchair accessibility - Seeking to improve the facilities for young people by producing an article for the school magazine summarizing the problem and possible solutions PERSONAL AND CULTURAL EXPRESSION Students will explore the ways in which we discover and express ideas, feelings, nature, culture, beliefs and values; the ways in which we reflect on, extend and enjoy our creativity; our appreciation of the aesthetic. - Improving the environment in the local hospital by designing and creating a series of pictures to hang in the corridors - Performing a theatre play to raise awareness on bullying - Promoting intercultural understanding through a graffiti contest SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL INNOVATION Students will explore the natural world and its laws; the interaction between people and the natural world; how humans use their understanding of scientific principles; the impact of scientific and technological advances on communities and environments; the impact of environments on human activity; how humans adapt environments to their needs. - Helping a local community make an efficient, low-cost use of energy-powered devices - Developing a program to promote the use of wind energy for domestic devices - Campaigning to reduce paper use and to promote recycling - Campaigning to reduce water, electricity or fuel waste GLOBALIZATION AND SUSTAINABILITY Students will explore the interconnectedness of human-made systems and communities; the relationship between local and global processes; how local experiences mediate the global; the opportunities and tensions provided by world-interconnectedness; the impact of decision-making on humankind and the environment. - Campaigning to raise awareness and reduce plastic straw waste use - Passing a plan to local authorities for tree planting in an area in need of re-greening - Creating a school or community garden FAIRNESS AND DEVELOPMENT Students will explore rights and responsibilities; the relationship between communities; sharing finite resources with other people and with other living things; access to equal opportunities; peace and conflict resolution. - Campaigning for fair-trade awareness - Contributing to educational opportunities, for example, supporting a local non-governmental organization that works on literacy in our town - Addressing the concerns of immigrants and migrant populations
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Congratulations to Piedmont's Mock Trial team for placing first at their competition at the Mecklenburg County Courthouse Friday! The trial lasted all day but the students worked hard and were well prepared for victory thanks to Ms. Jones, Mr. Egnot and helpers. We are very proud of them.
Piedmont is proud to announce the creation of our very first dream team instituted and led by health teacher Ms. Mary Ferreri. For their first act of service and leadership, the dream team had all grade levels pledge and take photos to stand up and be tobacco free our #nosmoke November. These exceptional students fit the Dream Team motto: Be A CHAMPION
C- courage H- honor A- attitude M- motivation P- persevere I-integrity O- optimistic N-never give up We applaud the Dream team and welcome their leadership in our school! On Friday, students at Piedmont IB and Concord Middle Schools worked together on a global aid project. Students spent hours setting up a proper food packing site according to regulations, then, after a dinner break in which a portion of the money they spent went to fund more suppies for needy families, the students spent hours again packing food to send to Central and South America. "Feed My Starving Children" partnered with the restaurant chain Tacos 4 Life to host a Mobile Pak event. The Mobile Pak event uses community volunteers to package rice, soy, vegetables and vitamin powder to send to Central and South American aid organizations that help feed kids and families. Thanks to Piedmont 7th grade science teacher Mr. Anderson for facilitating the event. He says it was a good deed and also a learning experience for the students, "Students participating in the event and completing subsequent reflections helps students realize that what they do locally, can make a difference in the world... all while doing something fun."
I had the honor of chaperoning the Piedmont Gay Straight Alliance field trip to the Carolina Conference on Queer Youth at UNC Charlotte recently and was blown away by the quality of the presentations and information shared. Ms Tapia was on the panel of my favorite presentation, "Creating Safe Spaces for LGBTQ Students and Educators: A K12 Panel".
The panel was comprised of current and former CMS students and staff who shared ways to help all young people in our schools feel safe and supported. As an educator I did not realize how much stigma students have to deal with if they are LGBTQ. We don't realize how much our neglecting to truly create a safe space harms students' educations. One panelist banned herself from ever entering her neices' and nephews' school building, in an effort to save them from the kind of taunts, ugly words, and bullying the panelist received growing up. These taunts, ugly words, and bullying continue today. Although the world is learning, it is not soon enough for the 9 of 10 LGBTQ students who are harrassed based on their orientation. Add into that number all the teachers who don't recognize students for who they are, who don't accept a student's family; add in students who have an LGBTQ friend, relative, or loved one, and then add in how many students partake in the belittling of other classmates, and you see the issue affects all of us. Imagine how many people limited their education because they did not feel welcomed in their learning environment. Ms. Tapia and her club help make Piedmont a safe space for all. If we follow the lead of the GSA, no student will cut short their educational opportunities because they are not accepted as a complete person; no parent, aunt, uncle ever feels unwelcome to participate in supporting their student's education. We know the stories of the past, but we might not realize how opresssion and intolerance is still pervasive and how that hurts us all -and how many of our LGBTQ youth bear the brunt of that pain in school. We all have a lot to learn and we can't wait around to change. What can we do? My takeaway from Ms Tapia's session is that labels destroy lives and put our fellow community members in danger. Under the School Violence and Prevention Act, we eduators must address infractions against a students gender identity or sexual orientation. You must call it out and stop it every time. More than just stopping bullying, it is Important for us to to counteract negative messages our students get. How? Send messages of acceptance & welcome. Make a point to loudly approve of LGBTQ+ models and include those examples often in class. The panel suggests we employ restorative circles and inclusive curriculum. Even if your district has an inclusive policy, there is a cultural aspect in the larger community that makes LGBTQ faculty and students feel unwelcome to be themselves at school! Students need to feel accepted but we fear bad press from those who are still ignorant. The phenomenal keynote speaker at the conference, Gia Cordova said, "In school we're not taught to be happy with ourselves. We're taught to compete with each other and taught to strive for perfectionâ This leads us to what students can do for each other and themselves: kindness and acceptance are key. Students, if you do not see these values in your classroom, alert any of us who have a safe space sticker on our door. Gia Cordova reminded us at the conference that all our young people deserve the world. I'd like to leave this post with the handwritten affirmation Ms Cordova had conference participants join in reciting aloud. Read it to yourself now. Say it aloud. Practice it and share it with others and we will make our schools the welcoming and inclusive places all our kids and community deserve and can thrive in.
Thank you, Ms. Tapia and GSA for leading the way forward at Piedmont and in the district and region, and thank you, reader, for joining with us.
Love, âMs. Gurthie
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Celebrating Piedmont : a blog of Happy HappeningsCategories
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December 2019
Author"Celebrating Piedmont" logs only a small fraction of the learning magic the teachers of CMS' Piedmont Middle School, an IB World School. create daily. In that sense, it is authored by all the staff and students of Piedmont. It is curated by Ms. Gurthie who can be reached at the icons above. She'll be happy to brag about Piedmont's teachers and students any chance she gets! Please note this blog has only just begun and we have so much to show off! Come back again soon! |