Pillar Spotlight #24: The Science Showcase @Beta Upper School!

Learn more about what a group of 6th graders focused on for their Passion Project! 

All about the Science Showcase: 
When the science PLC planned this, our intent was low-leverage, high engagement, but still educational. We wanted to keep teaching content without the high intensity of formal classes due to SBAC and MAP testing. We decided a low-key science fair style showcase would be fun. It would still hold students accountable to learning, but would allow for creativity and engagement and learning the student way. Ultimately, our goal was to do a deep dive into a standards based topic that occurred this year per grade level. Our focus was on asking questions and defining problems, developing and using models, planning and carrying out investigation, analyzing and interpreting data amongst a few of our designing and engineering practices. Essentially, students designed a focus question which led their investigation, collected or researched data, wrote CERCA responses to their focus question, designed models and/or presented their findings via poster boards, google slide shows or prezis. Students were excited to present all their new learnings often taking and answering questions to fuel their passion.


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A recent interview with a group of 6th grade students: 
What is your favorite thing about Caliber: Beta Academy, specifically Upper School?
Loyal Blake: “This is only my second year here and I am learning to be more responsible ! We get to be involved in lot more leadership like SAG, I am an advisory representative.”
Anaissa Cabeza: “I like that we get Dean’s List reports and it tells us our GPA and our attendance - we get to know what we need to work on or what positive things we did in class. I really like that we get to write what our goals are for the next week.”
Joshua Villalobos: “I like that we have more classes and activities!”



Tell me more about the Science Showcase?
Kemi Adeduro: “So we also call it the Passion Project, because it’s something that we chose to explore. The science showcase is a way we can show our parents and other kids in what we are working on!”
Anaissa: “I think it’s important for other students to understand what we are learning and our curriculum and through the showcase, they get to see new things that they might not know about if they are in another grade level.”



Why do you think it’s important for students to participate in the science fair?
Joshua: “It’s important because we get to choose what we want to talk about, and dive deep into what we are learning in the classroom. This is preparing us for high school because we also get to work with others and form groups, so we really have to learn to collaborate.”
Loyal: “We get to teach others about science and collaborate with different people!”



Tell me about your own science project?
Kemi & Anissa: “Our science project was on how global warming affects the Arctic. We got a piece of ice and paper animals - that deteriorate with hot water- to represent global warming. This turns into rising sea levels, which we can demonstrate at the showcase.” Loyal: My group focused on a focus question- What causes coloration in rainbows? So we came up with different theories as to how the sun affects the rainbow and how they form. We used a prism to reflect it since we can't form raindrops and so the crystal acts like a raindrop and we are able to reflect this.”



If you could relate this project to one of our pillars, which would it be?
Anaissa: “Smart and Think because we are researching topics and really trying to figure out how something works."​