Student News
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Team 1PYKB
We were blown away by the kind acts that our teammates showed during Make Someone Feel Good Day. Thank you to Ollie for leading this great idea! Team 1PYKB have also been exploring the concept of design thinking! Ms. Y and Ms. Kurt’s groups are designing playgrounds for each other, and Miss Pantano and Mrs. Bain-Lowry’s groups are doing the same!
Designing Playgrounds
Victorian Premiers' Reading Challenge
The Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge started on the 3rd of February this year. It is coming to a close on the 19th of September. We will be celebrating the students who participated soon, it is very exciting. We have 32 students participating this year, 12 students have completed the challenge so far and many books have been read.
Team Multi-Age is going on Virtual Excursions to the Zoo
To compliment student learning about environments and biological science we are attending Virtual Excursions provided by Zoos Victoria.
Virtual Excursions take students on a learning journey of animals and conservation. Zoos Victoria is offering the Virtual Excursion programs at no cost. Each session includes a webinar with a Zoo teacher. While not a tour of the zoo, this experience utilises an expert educator working remotely to talk directly to students. Your class teacher will be present at the sessions, as supervision of these sessions will replace regular live lessons on that day.
Year 3’s and 4’s- Aussie Animal Adventurers Monday, 7 September 2020, 2:30pm
Year 5/6- Predator Prey- Tuesday September 8, 2020, 2:30pm
Year 2’s- African Animals- Friday, 11 September 2020 1:45 pm
Year 2’s- Australian Animals- Monday, 14 September 2020 12:00 pm
Year 5/6 Call of the wild - Monday 14 September 2020 12:45pm
Year 2’s- Lifecycles- Tuesday, 15 September 2020 12:00 pm
Please follow the instructions sent to you via Compass to join the webinars.
September STEMletter 2020
Hi SMPPS STEMgineers,
I hope you’re all having a great time making and flying your paper planes. I’ve found adjusting the wings helps alot with how far and long mine can fly.
Do you know the forces working on a paper plane in the air: lift, drag, gravity and thrust. Your arm throw is the thrust, maybe try different ways of throwing to see if that helps? Throw it upwards, aim it down or straight. And does it help if you jump as you throw?
Congratulations!!! to everyone for your AMAZING Science Week creations. It was so much fun seeing your ideas in LEGO, crafts, videos and drawings. You can watch the gallery video on Seesaw.
And speaking of videos... are you ready for an upcoming STEM challenge? The first SMPPS Film Festival? It will be amazing.
The films don’t need to be in till next term so you’ve got time to practice filming, think about an idea, plan it, film it and then do all that editing! We’ll let you know the theme soon.
The movie can be a stop motion, timelapse, a documentary, animation, information, acting or anything less than one minute.
To help you get started on movie making (and to answer an Ask the STEM Leader question), we’ve made some helpful how-to videos for Stop Motion explaining how to start, how many shots to take and how “onion skin” helps to keep your movie look smooth. They will be on Seesaw.
You can use a phone, digital camera, tablet or laptop and different apps to make and edit the movie and sound effects and music.
You can work with school friends and family with it too.
If you watch the Science Week Oceans video on Seesaw you will see Venice made a great stop motion movie with a whale eating a fish and swimming away. Awesome example.
I made the “How to draw a disco ball” video (on Seesaw at the moment) using iMovie, and a bit of animation in Google slides. To speed up my drawings (I was much slower in real life and it was not that exciting) I used the iMovie speed changer edit tool.
Here are some inspirations I use.
- Brickfilms.com: Lego® stop motion animation videos & movies
- https://www.aardman.com/work/ Aardman claymation is amazing and takes so long to make.
- Morph
- These are on Youtube so check with your parents:
You can see how to make a Morph Claymation video series which is so helpfulMake Your Own Movies With Merlin - Animation Tips
If you haven’t made a stop motion a few apps to start off with are:
- Stop Motion Studio (it’s free for a basic version and then you pay for extras)
This is available Google Play and Apple iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch. - iMovie and iMotion (it’s a bit tricky to start with but has lots of great editing options on your iPad or Mac)
- If you’re starting out a great app I used at the very very beginning of filming is from the NGV called Tromaramix. It adds your titles and credits in and music and has the onion skin on. It is only for Apple. Tromaramix on the App Store
2/3D Team - Busy Students!
The students have been so busy we can't fit it all in one newsletter! Watch the next issue of the newsletter for more great work.
FELIX - OUR OCEANS
Introduction:
Our oceans are very precious. They give us water, food and a place to swim. Nearly three quarters of the Earth is ocean. Without oceans life wouldn’t be possible. Only 5% of the oceans have been discovered, basically we know more about space then we do about the ocean. Every time scientists look at the sea they see... PLASTIC POLLUTION. Oceans are important and we need to protect the sealife and water from this pollution, let me tell you why.
Conclusion:
The ocean gives us water, food and air plus it can help make clean energy. Without it we couldn’t live. There are fish and seaweed in the ocean, which are a source of food for us and other sea life. We all should cut down on our plastic use and choose your energy wisely to look over the ocean ecosystem. That concludes it folks. Oceans are important, protect them!
Happy Planet in Lockdown
Director of Environmental Sustainability, Hunter McLean has a few tips to share with SMPP community to keep our planet happy in lockdown. Enjoy!