Community Night March 2010 - Fill Those Bowls!

What a great time we had at Community Night this week! Art Teacher Ms. Hansen organized a special cooperative effort with Empty Bowls and Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes so that we could not only serve soup to our families, but send them home with a ceramic bowl made by an Edison student. In case you missed it, here's a quick video with some highlights. Make plans now to attend the next Community Night in June when we announce the winners of the Edison Digital Film Festival!

Oh, have a great Spring Break too! :)

Vote for your favorite in the Edison Digital Film Fest

The Edison Digital Film Festival was unveiled at Literacy Night in February. Many people enjoyed the wonderful short films created by students at Edison Environmental Science Academy and were told that yes, they would be able to view them online. Today we are excited to tell you that they are here for your viewing AND voting!

The films that were submitted can be viewed in our Vimeo channel.

To vote for your favorite, head over to twtpoll!

New Daily Announcements Page

One of the great things we love about Blogger is that Google is always making it better. A recent improvement that we are especially excited about is the ability to make pages, not just blog posts. This is great news if you are using Blogger for a classroom or school blog because you can do neat things like this...

Create a separate page just for daily video announcements!

Click the link at the top of this page or here to see the latest video announcements produced by Edison students.

Students Take Pride in Their Work

One of the wonderful opportunities students at Edison Environmental Science Academy have available to them is the after-school program. Funded by the 21st Century grant, students are able to extend their school day and accentuate their learning in some very exciting ways.

Students are teamed up with adult coaches who make sure they get their snack right after regular dismissal, work with them on homework, and lead them in special activities. Coach Hillsman gave her students a special assignment this past week: a digital camera safari!

With four digital cameras, kids were split into groups and instructed to take pictures of whatever they wanted to around the school. The catch? They had to be ready to explain why they took each picture!

Here's a video that shows some of those pictures. Notice how many pictures are of projects that they have completed and are displayed either in the hallway or in the classrooms. Students at Edison Environmental Science Academy take great pride in their work...and they should! They are doing great things on their journey to a fantastic future in middle school, high school, college, and beyond!

Community Night A Great Success

With tables for every grade setup to show-off student work, and dozens of family members there to take it in, our second quarter Community Night was a wonderful evening for everyone that attended.

Clay models of transportation, posters of alternative energy inventions, videos of students explaining the watershed and dam situation in Kalamazoo County, and radio commercials from specialized and non-specialized (student) farmers. These are just some of the student products that were on display for Community Night.

The highlight of the evening was the presentation of Merit

Awards to several Edison students. Every teacher and the after-school program coaches nominated students to receive this award for good behavior, outstanding citizenship, and the kind of attitude and focus that will see them through to college. There was many a proud parent in the audience as students from pre-school to 5th grade were called forward to accept their awards.

Keep an eye on this blog and our official website at http://edisonmagnet.org for the date of the next Community Night.