Celebrating Student Writers & Passion Project Spotlight
Outside of school, our students are tinkerers, creators, athletes, actors, technicians, inventors, stylists…and writers! Middle school teachers Renata Martin and Jeff Burnaugh have taken the initiative to collect an assortment of highlights from our middle school students who are extending their classroom learning into creative and impactful ways in the real world. We are excited to share their work with the Live Oak community and beyond. Read about one of our student writers and a couple projects students in our middle school Passion Projects class have been working on.
Sixth grader Kallisto G. won second place in the global Opportunity X STEM Essay Contest for her essay about terraforming Mars. Here is an excerpt from her essay:
“Our solar system has captivated the human mind since the first caveman looked up and saw the stars. A seemingly endless ocean of lights. But one little dot is different from the rest. The Red Planet, Mars. Millions of miles away, a human civilization on Mars may seem like wishful thinking at best, and an impossible task at worst. But is a human civilization on Mars really such an “impossible” task and can it be done?”
Read her entire essay here.
This year, one of the Thursday morning middle school student activity classes is Passion Projects, a dedicated time during the week where students pursue projects of their own. Myself and Jeff Burnaugh co-lead the group and are documenting the interesting ways our students are applying their skills to causes and activities they feel passionate about. Below are two of their recent projects:
Josie D. started our middle school’s very first Sunrise Movement Circle! The Sunrise Movement is a national “movement of young people fighting to stop the climate crisis and win a Green New Deal,” and together with a solid crew of other passionate middle schoolers, she put together a petition and letter-writing campaign that she mailed to President Biden, demanding that his administration take action for our climate.
Harry O. built 11 weather stations with Arduino software devices, and then created an app called Climate SF that uses those weather stations. The app is in beta right now, and should be launched in the Apple App Store soon! Harry is now programming an aggregator for tech news.
Stay tuned – we are excited to share more of these impactful projects from our students moving forward!
Live Oak students are regularly applying their classroom learning to broader venues where they can start being changemakers in their communities.
Live Oak students are regularly applying their classroom learning to broader venues where they can start being changemakers in their communities.
Live Oak School welcomes and admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin, citizenship status, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, and faith to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities of Live Oak School. Live Oak School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin, citizenship status, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, and faith in administration of its educational policies and programs, admissions policies, Adjusted Tuition program, and athletic and other school-administered programs.