Rochester Scholars Jr.
Spring Course Descriptions 2008
- 2008 Spring Session: April 14 – April 18
- Offered to students in grades 6-8, running for one week, Monday - Friday. Students attend a full day of class from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., including a group lunch hour from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. Exciting lunchtime activities are planned for each day. Supervised early drop-off is available starting at 8 a.m. and supervised late pick-up is available until 5 p.m.
- Registration for the Winter and Spring Sessions opens on December 14, 2007.
Course List
American Sign Language
Authors of Tomorrow: A Course in Creative Writing
Build a Mobile Robot
Design Your Own Website!
Ecology & Microbiology
Patriotic Time Travelers
This Just In: An Introduction to Journalism
Course Descriptions
American Sign Language
Are you ready to go on a journey into the world of the Deaf, where our voice is in our hands and we listen with our eyes? Did you know that Deaf Americans share a rich and unique culture with their own history, traditions, beliefs, values, and etiquette? The Deaf community has its own doctors, Avon ladies, hairdressers, teachers, scientists, mechanics, and even plumbers. This class taps into the Deaf world and teaches students all about its people. Students will develop important signing skills and strategies that will allow them to communicate confidently and effectively with Deaf individuals. Rochester has the second-most populous Deaf community in America. There is a need and desire for this language to grow, bridging the gap between the hearing world and the Deaf world.
Authors of Tomorrow: A Course in Creative Writing
In this course, students are encouraged to use the environment around them
to foster their creativity and unique writing ideas. Together, we'll develop strong characters and settings through the use of our senses. We'll go on field trips to the Memorial Art Gallery and Spot Coffee in order to observe real-life characters and to draw inspiration from our surroundings. Students will also learn to work with a realistic sense of writing and what it takes to share a compelling story with a reader – from pre-writing to a publishable piece. Throughout the course, students will participate in writing exercises and peer story sharing to produce great stories of their own as they become the authors of tomorrow.
Build a Mobile Robot
How would you like to build a robot that moves around and interacts with the environment? Now is your chance! Sensors, motors, computer programming, robot design, and construction come together in this hands-on workshop. First, students work in small groups using Lego Mindstorm kits to design, build, and program a robot that will accomplish an assigned task. Then students think of a problem, design a robot to solve it, and build that robot. Students learn how to program, how to work effectively in teams, how to solve engineering problems, and the start-to-finish design process for building a working system. (Maximum Enrollment of 15)
Design Your Own Website!
Have you ever wanted to have your own place on the Internet? Through this course, you will get your very own website address that needs to be filled with content on a topic that interests you. You’ll learn basic principles of web design, graphics, fonts, page layout, search engines, and animation as you personalize your site to reflect your personality and interests. The class will close with each student publishing his or her website, and searching for it on the World Wide Web!
Ecology & Microbiology
The Rochester Scholars Jr. students have been asked to catalog the biodiversity at the University of Rochester’s River Campus! In this course, students will take out their magnifying glasses and field notebooks to do some sleuthing. Students will search for footprints, holes, fur, and nests to determine what organisms inhabit the field site. We will also take some samples back to the lab for further testing to see what microbes are out there. In the lab, we’ll prepare cultures of the microbes and watch them grow. Be prepared to get dirty and (maybe) even grossed out!
Patriotic Time Travelers
What color was our founding fathers’ hair under their white wigs? Where was the original capital of the United States located? Take a patriotic journey through history to study the early American republic. This course will combine role-playing and re-enactments to explore the events and eras that comprise American history. Through interactive projects, students will travel through time to discover the symbolism of the American flag, writing of the constitution, and the state of the economy in the early 1800s.
This Just In: An Introduction to Journalism
What makes a story “breaking news?” This course will cover the art of getting the story, writing your firsthand account, and reporting the news via broadcast, print, or online. Students will learn skills that every journalist needs to know, such as interviewing, note-taking, story preparation, editing, and reporting. Examine current stories that have made the news, and find out the elements that made them newsworthy. Break out your notebooks and microphones – it’s time to get the scoop!
