Egg Drops in Design Class

Under the direction of Middle Years Program Teacher, Jamie Truax, Virgin Islands Montessori School & Peter Gruber International Academy 8th grade students had a fun afternoon conducting egg drop experiments. 

The egg drop challenge was a fun project for the last week of design class that was completed in a week. "We went through the steps of the design cycle- investigate, plan, create, and evaluate. First, the students investigated what the challenge was and looked at various websites for ideas" commented Truax. Basically the idea of the project is to create something you can put an egg inside so that when it's dropped from a tall height, the egg won't break.

Students came up with at least two ideas for a plan and began to bring in supplies. After that we created! Various teachers donated balloons, straws, bubble wrap, plastic bags, tape, etc. and some students brought supplies from home as well. The students had 45 minutes to build their protective barrier around their egg. The class went down to the stage and dropped their eggs from the top and EVERY SINGLE EGG SURVIVED! Afterwards, the students reflected on the process. 

8th Grade Hurricane Blogs

Virgin Islands Montessori School & Peter Gruber International Academy 8th grade students created websites in groups using a free website generator called wix.com to make informative blogs about hurricanes in the Virgin Islands, under the direction of MYP Teacher Jamie Truax. 

"On these sites, the 8th graders shared personal stories, as well as information about past hurricanes. I am so proud of the hard work they put into these in just 4 short weeks. Check them out when you have a few minutes!" says Truax.

Truax explained that at times, the kids struggled emotionally because it brought up feelings that they may have bottled away for a while. They also struggled with some technology aspects, such as everyone in the group seeing the same screen, web layout, things not saving, etc. 

"Some students didn't feel comfortable at all sharing their personal hurricane stories which is why I let them choose between writing their experience with the hurricanes or writing a history of hurricanes in St Thomas. Most students who ended up sharing their experience said it was difficult to reflect back on, but they were eager to share their experience of what happened with others because many people who don't live in the Virgin Islands don't know what we went through." added Truax.

Saskia, Thomas, N'Jheri, and Bianca's site  https://saskiac8.wixsite.com/website

Layla, Rohan, Leah, and Anna's site https://laylar7.wixsite.com/hurricanes/about

Ava Jayne, Tyler, and Maia's site https://avajaynep.wixsite.com/mysite

Helen, Eliza, Aidan, and  Ka'eo's site https://helenr36.wixsite.com/website-1

Amir, Tianna, and Sakari's site https://sakaric.wixsite.com/hurricane-history

Audrianna, Vidhika, and Diego's site https://vidhikak.wixsite.com/hurricaneedu

International Women's Day Gender Role Exercise

In eighth grade design class at Virgin Islands Montessori School and Peter Gruber International Academy, students celebrated International Women's Day by completing an exercise that explored gender roles. Prior to starting the exercise, Ms. Jamie Truax, Middle Years Program Math and Design teacher, made sure not to explain the purpose of the activity beforehand. “I told each student to get out a sheet of paper and divide it into 8 sections” Truax said, adding that students were told they would have 1 minute to draw a picture in each section. Truax then instructed her class to draw a nurse, doctor, firefighter, scientist, astronaut, politician, gardener, and artist.

Afterwards, Truax explained that the purpose of the exercise was to explore gender roles in recognition of International Women's Day - a day intended to celebrate female achievements throughout history and across nations. At the conclusion of the exercise, data was tallied on the board. “We counted how many women, men, and gender neutral pictures were drawn for each occupation. We were surprised by some of our results!” said Truax.

Truax explained the results noting that she wasn’t surprised that most students drew a woman nurse and artist. They were however surprised and excited that most students drew women scientists, and were not so surprised to see that most students drew male politicians. The eighth grade class concluded that most people drew gender neutral firefighters and astronauts because they wear so much gear it's hard to tell if they're a woman or a man.

Truax added that “it's important to explore gender equality in schools and make it known that anyone has the potential to grow up and have any occupation. Doing this exercise was a fun way to explore how we stereotype without even knowing it.” One student said, "This was a fun activity to do on International Women's Day. I learned a lot about how we perceive different jobs".  

Happy International Women's Day!

Build A Tower, Build A Team!

Under the direction of Virgin Islands Montessori and Peter Gruber International Academy middle school math teacher, Jamie Truax, the eighth grade class participated in a mini design project this week called the Marshmallow Challenge- a challenge that has been done all over the world in schools, conferences, and business meetings. "This challenge teaches the students teamwork, as well as STEM" Truax says. 

Students are given an envelope with 20 sticks of spaghetti, 1 marshmallow, 1 roll of tape, and 1 ball of string. Students were put in random groups and whoever creates the tallest structure wins. 

"I was so impressed by how the 8th graders collaborated to build a spaghetti structure." Truax says adding that students shared materials, and how wonderful it was to see each student work collaboratively towards achieving a common goal. 

The winners of the challenge were Audrianna, N'Jheri, and Sakari! Their structure stood 16.5 inches tall. 

Learn more about the marshmallow challenge by watching this TED Talk!