Blog #1

It feels like such a long time ago since our learning journey to the Big Island!  I was extremely nervous to start my second year of teaching but it I feel that it has been going pretty good.  I feel much more organized and a little less stressed since I have gone through the curriculum once already.  I also started using interactive notebooks in my classes which I feel really helps my students and myself with organization. 

            One of my colleagues and good friends, Jo-Hanna Valdez, and I were designated with the immense task of create a field trip for the entire math department.  This wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t approximately two thousand students what would be going on this field trip.  What we have decided to do so far is to split the students up by grades.  Freshman and sophomores will be going on a service learning field trip and the juniors and seniors will go to a job and career fair.

            For the Juniors and Seniors, we want to have the job and career fair off campus if possible to make the experience more appealing too the students.  James Campbell High School has many partnerships and we would like ask them to participate in our job and career fair to show case how they use mathematics in their line of work.  Also we want to showcase a wide variety of possible careers to our students that they could consider after high school or college. 

            Our freshmen and sophomores will bee going on a service learning experience during term 3.  We are currently working on getting a count of how many algebra I, geometry/MOW (modeling our world), and algebra II students we have that are Freshmen and Sophomores so we can find a venue that can accommodate us.  We contacted Kupu and they recommended contacting the Waianae Watershed Partnership.  I looked at their website and I think it would be a great place to take them on our side of the island.  Also I figured out that since we would be going in term 3, we can integrate how watersheds work into the Algebra I curriculum by using systems of equations to determine approximately how much water gets to the ocean while considering equations for the rate of rainfall, the approximate amount of water absorbed in the soil.  Algebra II teachers can also incorporate the function of a watershed to systems of equations.  Geometry/MOW teachers can possibly incorporate volume and/or trig ratios.

            If anyone has been to a Waianae Watershed Partnership site please let me know how it went and what you and your students did there.  That would be greatly appreciated!

            Though we are having a hard time even just starting to plan.  We are currently just struggling to get an accurate count of all the students taking each mathematical subject.  We have sent out emails and had a sign in at the last math department meeting and we still have only gotten fourteen out of about forty math teachers to give us their student counts.  Also we need to sort out which algebra II classes are freshmen and sophomores.  We currently want to get an accurate count before we contact the Waianae Watershed Partnership so we can figure out how many students/classes can go on the field trip a day and how many days we are looking at overall.  Also to find a venue for the job and career fair for our juniors and seniors.  If anyone has a better strategy to get teachers to cooperate and give us a count of their students please help.