Great Artists: The Process by MHS

“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” 
- Ansel Adams

        When you look at our photographs, you see an image that will hopefully make you feel something. We put effort into the picture, but you might not see our process.

       Stage 1: The Beginning. First, we had to learn about Ansel Adams and what inspired him. We watched a documentary called “Great American; Ansel Adams”. Then Bret C.came in and taught us about the grey scale, which is a scale invented by Adams that goes from light to dark and has all the shades of grey. To practice this technique, we drew simple things like a box and shaded it. Then we applied it to an Ansel Adams Photograph. We took our new found skills and transferred it to our photographs.

        Stage 2: Experimenting. After we collected background information we started to go out into nature and take photographs. At first, we started simply taking pictures around the school. We experimented with our own cameras and occasionally we got the opportunity to use a Sony a57. We tried taking pictures of different things to find our vision just like Ansel Adams did in nature. We wanted to take pictures that made us feel passion. After we had some experience we, decided we were ready for a bigger challenge.

        Stage 3: Dedication. We wanted to experience the dedication that Ansel Adams had for his photographs. Our first thought was it would be a great experience to camp out somewhere. The S***** graciously volunteered their lawn. With a lot of planning and cooperation we all packed into cars and off we went to KS's house. When we got there we set up camp (literally CAMP!) Then we went on a hike to a waterfall. “ When I was hiking to the waterfall I felt like Ansel Adams because I had to lug all of my stuff up hills.” says sixth-grader SW. We ate dinner and then went outside and slept. In the morning we woke up at 6:30 a.m to take early morning photographs. We ate breakfast and left our campsite. We still wanted more opportunities to take photographs.


       Stage 4: Field Trip! On March 20, we went on a field trip to Torrey Pines State Reserve. We had to hike up a hill which gave us a lot of good photo-taking opportunities. The we went on a short 3/4 of a mile beach loop. On the way we bonded and took lots of amazing pictures with the help of Carwai (our advisor) and Laure (our film and photography teacher.) After we had hiked down to the beach we walked back along the beach. Which gave us amazing scenery to snap photographs of. After we were happy with our photographs we had to make some decisions.

      Stage 5: Decisions. One of the best parts of Great Artist in NMY is the opportunity to choose. We knew that we wanted to print our photographs in order to display them. So Carwai did some research. We had to take a lot of things in consideration for example we only had a budget of $16.50 per person. Carwai found two good places to print but we ended up printing at Cove.  We got our prints back and we were all happy with the result. Then we had to decide what to do about our banner. We decided to have a committee come up with the idea and our entire class to work on it. Then all we had to do were the finishing touches.

    Stage 6: Panic Mode. I say panic mode because this is where we had loos ends to tie up. First, Amy C. came in to share her expertise in matting with us. We had to complete our banner and set up the room to for it to look like the beautiful exhibit that we envisioned.

I would like to close the same way I began, with a quote. This time, one said by a sixth grader, “If a photograph does not capture an emotion it does not achieve a photograph’s purpose”.

Student Reflections: Solar Powered Cars

An integral part of the learning process that we often do not get to see is the reflection process. After an activity or lesson students are encouraged to take time to reflect on what happened, what they learned, and whether or not they thought it was worthwhile. In sixth grade, we have been working up to these types of reflections by doing them orally and giving each other feedback. 

Upon completing our study of solar-powered cars, the students were asked write a detailed reflection. They created them in Google docs and published them to the web. If you are interested in reading their reflections, you will find them listed with links below.  If you would like to read more about the solar-powered car project, you can find out more here.

SW       NW       KS       MDS      MHS       IR       MR       SO       CL      KK       KG       MG      TD      LC

Solar Cars by LC and MHS

   Solar Cars

    By LC and MHS

For the past months in science, we have been working on solar-powered cars. Firs,t we had to learn all about photovoltaics (solar energy) and electric circuits. We learned about energy and its connection to the sun and how electricity flows. After we mastered this concept, we decided to make solar-powered vehicles. We had to wait for the materials, but they came quickly. First, we had to separate all of our equipment. After that, we cut and measured balsa wood. It wasn’t that easy because all of our measurements had to be exact. Learning to use an Xacto knife was pretty tricky too. We spent a few days experimenting with gears. We discovered how they turned and how their sizes made differences in speed and torque. After we experimented with the gears, we had lots of gluing to do. We had to assemble our chassis (or car body) and axles. Once all of that was done, then came the gear/motor assembly. We got to choose our gear combinations that impacted the speed and power of the car. We glued on the motor and screwed on the gears. Then came the ambitious part. We had to solder alligator clips to battery packs and the solar panels. It was quite difficult to solder because we were dealing with 750 degrees tools. Thank you to Evan and Brett for helping us out with the soldering. Finally, completed the final steps which involved lots of glue. Protractors and rulers came out to make sure everything was perfect. We checked the angle that our solar panels were mounted to make sure it maximized the power.  We tested our cars and they worked! We had so much fun with this project!

The Big Turkey by CL and LC

Almost every week different classes "lead" an event called Community Meeting. Usually, classes share what they are doing in class, or what they did on a certain field trip. This year, the sixth grade decided that they wanted to recreate a play the kindergartners usually do every year called the "Big Pumpkin". We choose the Big Pumpkin because for some reason, the Kindergardeners didn't do the cute little play about Halloween this year, and we wanted to keep the tradition going. But, instead of making it exactly like the original, we decided to retell the story with a Thanksgiving theme because it was around that time. First, we rewrote the script, using the original songs and lines, but twisting them so they can be Thanksgiving related. Then, everyone picked their parts, got their costumes, and we all started to practice. During this process, someone thought of an idea to make a song to go with it, and we would sing it at the end. We all thought it was a great idea and we created a song, and we created a dance to go with it. The song was called "Gobble Gobble Style." It was based of the popular song,"Gangnam Style," by the artist, PSY. The impressive part about this process was that we were able to do all of this in about 2-3 days. On the first day, we had no idea, and on Friday we sold it! When we presented it in front of everyone, they loved it and all the kids were humming "Gobble Gobble Style" for the rest of the day. Then the following Tuesday, we presented it in front of the Grandparents on Grandparents' Day, they loved it. We had a great time thinking about the ideas and picking the parts! 

If you would like to see our skit, please check it out here! 





Written and report by CL and LC.

Fall Festival Pumpkin by KK

This is our pumpkin. It has come a long way way from the very beginning. First, we formed  a Pumpkin Committee to decide what it would look like. The people KK, MR, KS, KG, LC, CL came together and decided that we would have a spider on a web as our theme. Then, it was brought to the class to get their approval. Next, we formed groups that were pulled randomly out of a cube: the light spider group and the heavy spider group and the web group. Everyone else made awesome bugs out of pipe cleaners and beads. The light spider group was MR and KK, the heavy spider group was SO and KS. KS, LC, KG made the web, then in Open Studio SW helped and glued the bugs on. We all admired it, it’s really awesome and we put a lot of work into it. A very lucky person will get it on Sunday at Fall Festival!

Written and reported by KK.