Letter of Introduction from Ross Sheppard High School Edmonton, Alberta Canada
Dear International Science Students;
Greetings to all participants and organizers of the Worldwide Search for the Dominant Trait Project. We are excited to be a part of this international opportunity.
Ross Sheppard High School is located in the West End of the scenic River Valley City of Edmonton Alberta Canada at 53.6 degrees North Latitude and 113.53 degrees West Longitude (the Edmonton Oilers is the original NHL team that Wayne Gretsky played for). We are in the same part of the City as West Edmonton Mall-one of the largest shopping malls in the World. The school is surrounded by Coronation Park, which includes the Space and Science Center, an ice arena, tennis courts, an Olympic sized swimming pool as well as a shopping mall directly across the street. Ross Sheppard High School serves the needs of students from twenty-four junior high schools. We have a multi-cultural student body coming from diverse socio-economic backgrounds.We currently have 1850+ students in grades 10-12 in our school and approximately 140 staff members.
Our school colors are Columbia Blue and Navy Blue. Our mascot is Earlbird, the fiercest of all of our "Thunerbirds". We have a huge Totem Pole on our front lawn that was built as a school Centennial Project in 1977. Our School Motto is "Okimawitaw Otatuskewin" which means "Mastery for Service".
Our school offers a complete range of programming from exemplary academic programs, to excellent languages other than English programs, to outstanding fine arts and athletic programs. Ross Sheppard is a district site for the International Baccalaureate Program, the Mandarin Chinese Program, the Trainable Mentally Handicapped Program, the Autism Program and a Sports Alternative Program.
We offer an excellent extra-curricular program that provides students a wide variety of activities from sports to drama to music to many clubs and special interest groups as well as Students' Union Activities.
The students participating in the project include approximately 200 Biology 30 students and 5 teachers. This project is a natural fit into our Mendelian & Human and Applied Genetics Unit as we obviously discuss dominant and recessive traits.
We feel that this project is an excellent opportunity for our students to conduct field research as well as compile, organize and interpret data and of course have some fun in discovering a little bit about which traits they themselves possess.
We wish all participants in the study success and we extend our appreciation to Mr. Neil Holzman and the organizers of the Worldwide Search for the Dominant Trait Project for all of their efforts in organizing this opportunity. We can be reached by e-mail at kcochran@epsb.edmonton.ab.ca. Sincerely,
Mr. Kevin Cochrane Biology 30 Teacher