TCS Student News October 4th
October 4, 2019
This week’s news broadcast from The Community School was researched, written, produced and anchored by students Tyleiah Trusty and Keith Cooke.
This week’s news broadcast from The Community School was researched, written, produced and anchored by students Tyleiah Trusty and Keith Cooke.
Blasting off to the moon! Space Lab is back for a second year of science and discovery here at TCS, and this time the theme is the Earth’s moon. This 10-week unit will meet every Thursday will be led by Elaine Lewis, a former NASA-Goddard educator. Ms. Elaine is returning for her second year as a TCS seminar teacher. This semester’s seminar is only for Juniors and Seniors, although we hope to arrange another unit in the spring for all students.
Kicking off the moon unit is the critically acclaimed movie First Man. The movie chronicles NASA’s early attempts to send men to the moon, culminating in the historic Apollo 11 flight. While showing the movie, periodically Ms. Elaine will pause to teach the students extra information and discuss. This section of the unit will last around 3-4 weeks. Thank you Ms. Elaine for returning for another semester!
The students took a first-hand look at the building blocks of life in today’s CSI lab for the Sophomore Intro Biology class. CSI, also known as the Community School Initiative, is a project led by Johns Hopkins University student volunteers courtesy of the JHU Center for Social Concern. The Intro Biology class has been learning about DNA, the material inside of our cells that determine how our body looks and functions. In this lab, CSI led the students in extracting DNA from strawberries and bananas, a surprisingly simple procedure. Using dish detergent to break up the fruits’ cell walls, they did an extraction with isopropyl alcohol. This allowed them to visualize the DNA.
Ms. Rebecca said, “laboratory scientists do experiments like this every day (although usually with animal cells instead of fruit). Once they isolate the DNA, they can sequence it to study differences in the DNA of different people.” Studying differences in DNA allows scientists to find the changes in DNA that lead to diseases, and ways to fight these diseases. This was CSI’s first lab of the year with the Intro Biology students, and we look forward to more as the year goes on.
This week’s news broadcast from The Community School was researched, written, produced and anchored by students Faith Coleman and Jacob Cougle.
Imani Yasin has made a career of working with students in a mentoring capacity. She first became acquainted with TCS when she was working with the mentoring program Sisters Circle as their High School Programs Coordinator. Imani has been a sponsor for students in the school for 2 years now and her niece also attended TCS.
This spring Imani was awarded as a “Woman to Watch” by the Baltimore Philomathians. Imani is also a local hip hop artist when she isn’t doing amazing work with youth. Imani has led a Conversation With at TCS before, focusing on her music and career. Today, she came back to share her experience traveling in South Africa and Mozambique over the summer.
In early summer, Imani co-lead a study abroad program for high school students through the group called The Experiment in International Living. The program aims to teach the students about leadership, human rights, peace, and politics. They embed themselves in the local communities, learn about the culture and unlearn stereotypes.
Because the majority of the program was in various South African cities, a major learning experience for Imani and the students focused on the history of Apartheid. Unlike American segregation which split people by white and not-white, South African Apartheid split people into multiple categories based on the lightness and darkness of their skin.
As a part of the program, Imani got to experience a diverse range of ways of life throughout South Africa. They stayed in busy cities, and with families in a rural village. She says that she really admired the pace of life in the village. “We don’t really get the opportunity to sit and observe because we live in a culture that’s so focused on the future,” she said. Her takeaways from the trip were the importance of community, gratitude, humility, history, and simplicity.
The students were all attentive and appreciative of this informative and relaxed conversation Thank you for coming and sharing your experience, Imani!
To start P.E. class today the students met with Ms. Liz Dover, Head of School at the GreenMount School. Ms. Liz told the students about the history of the GreenMount School. In the early 1990s, six parents weren’t happy with the public school system and applied to start a charter school. Back then, there were no charter schools yet in Baltimore and the parent group was denied by the city. The parents started the GreenMount School as a one-room, church basement nonprofit. It has grown over the years to include grades K-8 and hosts 100 students. Much like how our own sponsors volunteer to help TCS run, GreenMount is a “parent cooperative”. Each GreenMount parent agrees to contribute 40 hours a year to the school’s operations.
Ms. Liz also shared a little about herself. She used to be a science teacher, and she particularly loves earth science. She wasn’t sure about being an administrator at first, because she loves the interaction with students that comes with being a teacher. However, she felt the call to grow and take on new roles. Being an administrator in a small school helps, because she still gets to interact with all of the students. Ms. Liz says she knows all of her students names, and their families.
GreenMount loves to give back to the community, and has been working with TCS for several years. In an extension of this partnership, Ms. Liz invited the TCS students to apply to work at the school’s after school program. At the end of the discussion, Salma presented Ms. Liz with a card signed by the students, thanking her and the GreenMount community for the use of the gym and Mr. Eduardo’s P.E. instruction. Ms. Liz said that she looks forward to getting to know the TCS students better. She shared that she lives in Hampden, and “if you see me around in the neighborhood, please feel free to stop and say hi. I love being a part of the community”. Thank you Ms. Liz for talking with our students and for continuing to be a good friend of The Community School!