Program Update: Math with Andrea

6th grade In 6th grade math, we are wrapping up our second unit on advanced area and perimeter, coordinate planes, and ratios. Students have begun a project that unites these three big ideas and will create a blueprint for a tabletop putt-putt golf course. Using recyclable materials, students will use their blueprint and chosen scale…

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Program Update – Math with Andrea and Virgil

6th Grade In 6th grade math, we are wrapping up our unit on histograms and number characteristics like prime factorization. We’re expanding on our knowledge of area and perimeter in our new unit by exploring triangles and composite shapes. To derive the area formula of a triangle, we used this simulation by Geogebra to notice…

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Program Updates: Science with Virgil Beck and Kristin Moore

6th Grade How can the same piece of clay sink, float, and hover? Sixth graders are learning that the shape they mold the clay into makes the difference and that getting it to hover is SUPER tricky!! They’ve also explored why giant ships like the Titanic, with its swimming pool and restaurants, could float, and…

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6th & 8th Grade Math Updates from Explorer West

Our 6th graders came to middle school with varying levels of familiarity applying the order of operations. So far this semester, they have built on their experience to evaluate increasingly complex expressions. Now, they are folding in more and more negative numbers to the problems they tackle. These skills are foundational to all subsequent math…

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Explorer West Prepares Students for Final Debate Competition

On Saturday, January 23rd, 2016, fifteen Explorer West Middle School students and ten students from area schools – Bush, Overlake, Evergreen, Seattle Country Day, and Soundview – met at Explorer West to prepare for the final debate competition of the school year. Coaches from the Climb the Mountain Debate Foundation led the lively debate clinic, where students…

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