Spring 2006 Final Reports
All classes participating in this project have been asked to submit a final report to the project Discussion Area. In this report, students share what they have learned from doing the project.
Letters of Introduction:
Hey Everybody!
How are you all doing? We are students from Bedford High School in Bedford, Ohio a suburb of Cleveland (although it doesn’t really seem suburban). We enjoy a wide-range of sports including swimming, track, football, hoopin’ (basketball if you didn’t know), wrestling, and cheerleading, not to mention many others. Some extra-curricular activities that we enjoy are dance line, S.A.D.D., T.L.C., yearbook committee, National Honor Society, Spanish club, and many others.
Our school offers many educational opportunities that many schools may not offer. We can take vocational technology classes like automotive, cosmetology, and nursing as well as jewelry, business classes and work experience. Our classes are 40 minutes long with eleven periods in the day. Our day begins at 7:45 a.m. and thankfully ends at 2:20 p.m..
Our school is somewhat diverse, with several different cultures. There are several famous people that have graduated from our school like Halle Berry, Chris Chambers and Lee Evans.
Red highlights are really popular with the girls in our school and the guys like to “sag” their jeans. We don’t have a uniform, but there are certain rules that are enforced regarding dress. We are not allowed to wear anything on our heads (like baseball caps, wave-caps, and scarves, unless it is for religious reasons). Our skirts have to be a certain length and we also can’t wear t-shirts with inappropriate phrases or sleeveless tank-tops.
We have a lot of school spirit. Our mascot is the bearcat and our colors are green and white. We enjoy attending games, especially football and basketball, and we also attend the spring musical, fashion show, Homecoming, and talent shows.
In Ohio it is very important that we pass our graduation test. The test has five parts that we must pass in order to graduate. Our school is graded based on these scores and our principal always reminds us to do well.
Discipline is a big thing here. If you get in trouble you might get Opportunity school (it’s just detention after school) or I.S.R. (which means you are in a room bored out of your mind for the entire day) or if it is really bad you might get O.S.S. which is out of school suspension (a vacation for some people, except you have to make the work up when you get back).
Our building is huge (it’s in four sections) and a pain to get through. You only have five minutes to get from one side to the other. But, it’s not all bad. We have one of the best stadiums in the state and a brand new weight room that is better than many colleges. We have a nice auditorium, an auxiliary gym and a swimming pool.
Many girls here carry cartoon bookbags like Scooby-Doo, Hello Kitty, Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears, Tinkerbell and Sponge Bob Square Pants, but other people use shoe bags to carry books and folders.
Wearing Adidas sandals with tube socks is common and so is Air Force Ones, stilettos, Jordans, New Balance, and LeBron’s (he’s from Akron, it’s really close to here). Most of us have jobs at places like McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Champs, grocery stores, nursing homes, and amusement parks.
We like to listen to R & B, rap, hip-hop, rock, gospel, pop, and metal. Our school actually has its own jazz band.
The weather is temperate with four seasons, but many people joke that we only have two seasons (snow and less snow). As you can see, our school is probably not that much different from yours it just takes some getting used to.
It will be interesting to read about other schools, especially from other countries. Also, we want to know if other students have the same dominant or recessive traits as we do.
It's On!
Elizabeth Elementary School in Oakland, California
To Students on the Human Genetics Project,
We are the students in the class, 8 Gold, at St. Elizabeth Elementary School in Oakland, California. St. Elizabeth is a private Catholic school. Across the street is our sister school, St. Elizabeth High School and the St. Elizabeth Church. Our school has been here for 112 years.
The community is nice and caring people. The community is very cooperative. If we do something, we all participate in an event. We all love to get along. In our community, we never leave anyone behind.
The principal is a religious sister, or nun. Over the years we have had nun teachers as well. The teachers are great. The school has grades kindergarten through eighth grade. Next year the school community is considering adding a preschool.
We have a small library and chapel in the school. We have a fairly new science lab. For six years we have had the Garden of Learning, an outdoor garden now located on the school property. At least once a month we go across the street to the church for mass.
The school has a dress code. Boys wear dark blue pants with a white polo shirt and girls wear a blue plaid skirt with a white shirt.
We have girl’s volleyball, boy’s and girl’s basketball, and track. The school mascot is the Knight.
We have candy sales for fundraisers. One week a year we have spirit week.
On Wednesdays we have an organic salad bar lunch.
The electives include drama, band, art, music, and computer. After school we have tutoring, choir, and ballroom dancing.
International School Nido de Aguilas in Santiago, Chile
Hello, hola, ciao, bon jour, ni hau, konichiwa, salut, namaste!
We are the representatives of the 8th grade science block F of the International School Nido de Aguilas. Nido de Aguilas is Spanish for Eagle's Nest. Our school is located in Santiago, Chile, at the foot of the Andes Mountains. Our school campus provides a friendly, educational environment for students.
Chile is a very interesting country, mostly because of its geographical diversity. In the east of Chile, we have the magnificent Andes mountain range. In the South, we have ice glaciers, and at the very end we have the Antarctica. In the West we have the Pacific Ocean. In the North we have the driest desert in the world, the Atacama Desert.
Along with Chile's geographic diversity, we also have types of cultures within our school. There are students from a variety of continents, and therefore learning about the world is easier. Nido de Aguilas offers us a big variety of activites and as well us people of other countries. Our school is a great place to study. It gives us the possibility to express ourselves in different forms such us drama, choir, music, and many different sports.
Unlike other schools we are not only evaluated through quizzes and tests, but we are also taught higher-level thinking. In other words, we learn "thinking out of the box," which prepares us for future conflicts.
Thanks for having the time to read our letter and hope you have enjoyed it.
Sincerely,
Ms. Wiley's block F
St. John's Episcopal School in Dallas, TX
Hi Everybody,
I go to St. John's Episcopal School in Dallas, TX. It si located on 848 Harter Road. I am in 7th grade. The school mascot is the Crusader and the school colors are blue and gold. There is a pretty strict dress code at my school and it is very important to follow it. St. John's has about 500 students in grades Pre-K through 8th grade. St. John's offers many sports throughout the school year, including soccer, volleyball, basketball, baseball, softball, and even golf. Many kids in my school love to play sports. St. John's also offers quite a few elective courses such as Drama, Choir, Chemistry, Marine Biology, Religion, Speech, Craative Writing, Guitar, Journalism, Yearbook, and Math Counts. Finally, lanuage courses offered here are German, Spanish and French.
My favorite subject at St. John's is Math. Mnay students like Math too along with Science, Social Studies and their elective. Each class is very unique and thrilling in a special kind of way, so being bored is practically impossible!
One common misconception about Texans is that we have a heavy Texan accent and are cowboys or cowgirls.
I sure do have a lot of fun at St. John's, expecially in my sixth period Science class. The other 17 students in the class and I are always excited and ready to learn something new every day. And we are all incredibly excited about this project!
Sincerely,
Andy
Mrs. Klammer's 7th Grade Science Class
I
International School Nido de Aguilas in Santiago, Chile
Hi,
We attend the international school of Nido de Aguilas, which means “nest of eagles.” We are located in Santiago, Chile. Our school is one of the top international schools in Chile. The school mascot is an eagle and our colors are red, white, and blue. The school, pre-kinder throught 12th grade, educated around 1500 students. All of the students are fortunate to be able to attend Nido, and as the eighth grade science class, we are happy to represent our school.
There are many students with different cultures, ethnic backgrounds, and religions. Nido has a very diverse population of students. The main language of the school is English but, because there are people from all corners of the world here, many different languages are spoken. To attend Nido you have to have a basic knowledge of English, and Spanish lessons are required. For students that cannot speak English fluently, ESL (English as Second Language) is provided.
Nido values having students attend many different after school activities. There are many diffferent choices, including soccer, basketball, rugby, tennis, volleyball, dance, cheerleading, track, field hockey, OPT, rock climbing, horseback riding, biking, karate, and yoga. There are also many after school clubs like art club, band, debate club, and several more.
Every year our school participates in a South American Cup between the international schools in South America. Our different highschool sports team compete in volleyball, basketball, and soccer.
Nido is located in the outskirts of Santiago, Chile, in Lo Barnechea. We host different annual events at our school. One of the events that has been very succesful is Kermess. Kermess is a celebration of the different cultures of people around the world. The PTA organizes about 50 booths from different countries; in the booths people sell food products from their country.
If you’d like to see more information about our school, our website is www.nido.cl. We would like to thank you for the opportunity to take part of this world-wide survey. It is a good “break” from the usual work that we do.
Sincerely,
Ms. Wiley’s Block A Class
Nido de Aguilas
We are seventh graders at The Miami Valley School, which is a private, college preparatory school. There are only about 500 students total from EC-12th grade at our campus. There are about 30 people per grade, and so we get to know our classmates very well by the time we’re done here! Our school is very culturally diverse. Many of us participate in academic competitions such as, Power of the Pen, Science Olympiad, and Math Counts. Our English teacher is actually a published author. Her name is Katrina Kittle…you should check out her books!
Our school mascot is the Ram and our sports are open to everyone at our school. Many of us play golf, tennis, basketball, softball, soccer, volleyball, cheerleading, and/or track. We really seem to excel at tennis and golf.
From: Lindsey Thaler, Miami Valley School
The Miami Valley School is located in Centerville, Ohio, which is a suburb of Dayton. Dayton is just North of Cincinnati and it has a population of about 167,000 people. We are the home of Wright Patterson Air Force Base, which is one of the largest airport installations in the world, as well as the air force's main research and development base. Our motto is “First in Flight” because Dayton was the birthplace of aviation inventors Wilbur and Orville Wright. We are a very close-knit community and many of us enjoy watching Dayton Dragons baseball, museums, and cultural festivals.
The average yearly temperature around here is about 60 degrees. It is usually in the 30’s around January and gets on average 85 in August. There are plenty of wooded areas around here and we see every season. We also get hit with our fair share of tornadoes.
We have developed our hypothesis about this project. The consensus from our science class is that the Dominant traits will be more prevalent in the population. We support this simply with our personal observations that most people in our class have dark features. We also agreed that most people will have dominant traits because they dominate over recessive traits. We've just begun our study of genetics, so we anticipate learning a lot through this study. We are all very excited to participate in this project!
We collected data by going to different classes and handing out sheets of paper that we used to tally up the traits. We used the computer and Excel to make graphs of the past and present data. |
Our class was able to complete the project as it was designed. We used one class period to gather our data and submit it. |
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