Dear Friends of Center City,
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The school year is off to a terrific start and we can’t wait to share what we’ve been up to! We strive to provide a diverse set of experiences to make learning relevant, engaging, and fun for our students. Our teachers and students have been busy with projects, field trips, school gardens, and other activities both inside and outside of their classrooms. From robotics programming to news shows, our students are learning in creative and new ways.
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Projects Make Learning Tangible in Science
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Science teachers are beginning to incorporate more opportunities for project-based learning into their science units in order to make learning more tangible and relevant for students. Our students are currently learning about how humans have impacted an ecosystem. Visitors from DC Clean Water and the Department of Energy and Environment will teach students about the impact of pollution and other human activity on our natural resources. Students will then go on a field trip to the Anacostia River through the Anacostia Watershed Society to learn about the human impact on the river first hand. As a culminating project, students will create a public service announcement, a social media post, or a poster to create awareness about this issue.
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Students Explore Their Passions
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Our Brightwood, Capitol Hill, and Petworth Campuses provide electives for middle grades students to expose students to new topics and give them the opportunity to find their passions. Our enrichment teachers have created these engaging electives and our students get to choose among them. Capitol Hill students can choose from: Art in Washington, DC, Coding, Health and Fitness, and Hip Hop. Brightwood students can choose from Concert Band, Bike Riding for Focus, Dance Company, Drama Lab, and Music Technology and Composition. Petworth students can choose from Farmstand, Women and STEM, and Hip Hop. The frequency of the electives varies by campus, but all campuses offer them at least weekly for an hour.
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Students Take Learning Outside
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Both the Brightwood and Trinidad Campuses operate school gardens and use them as a teaching tool. The Trinidad Campus has had a partnership with Washington Youth Gardens for several years. Through this partnership, a volunteer with the Foodcorps works with their school to help run the garden and provide garden-based lessons. So far, the Foodcorps member has begun working with students in grades Kindergarten through third grade. 5th and 8th-grade students will also begin working in the garden as part of their “buddies” program. Washington Youth Gardens has also become a presence at the school, holding food demonstrations at school events. This Saturday Trinidad will hold a community garden work day. This will be an opportunity for students and families to learn about the garden and help maintain it.
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Campuses Roll Out STEM Programs
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Two of our campuses are operating unique STEM programs--Petworth and Capitol Hill. At Petworth, STEM teacher Ben Grace teaches STEM classes to students in grades Pre-K3 through eight. Each quarter, students focus on a different STEM theme. In quarters one and two, students are learning about the engineering design process. In quarter three, students will learn about what science is and how the scientific process works. Quarter four focuses on technology, including computer programming as well as computer literacy and robotics. Classes meet anywhere from one to three times each week. Petworth and Capitol Hill are also offering robotics as an elective to middle school students. Participating students will work with Lego Mindstorms to build robots and gain a deeper understanding of computer programming.
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Students Produce Their Own News Show
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Center City Congress Heights has begun producing a weekly, student-led news show. Nia Barge, drama teacher at Congress Heights, supervises the project and guides students in structuring the show. Students are able to pitch ideas, help write the script for the shows, and participate in the on-camera reporting. Teachers also offer ideas that are connected to what they are teaching. Recent features have included a report on the switch to a new food vendor and an interview with Ms. Leidig, the counselor, about bullying. Check out their recent report below.
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Spotlight on Character, Excellence, and Service at Center City PCS!
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Students at the Capitol Hill Campus are engaging in “Socratic Seminars,” a student-led process of discussing a text. Students ask open-ended questions, build on each others’ responses, debate answers, and hold each other accountable. This process enables students to delve deeply into a text, creates access points for all students to participate, and enables students to practice being respectful of each others’ ideas. For example, after reading the Castle Diaries, students used the structure of a Socratic Seminar to discuss the impact of the social hierarchy during medieval times.
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On September 11th, Shaw students engaged in service activities to commemorate Patriot Day. Students created cards thanking police officers, servicemen and women, and firefighters and sent them to the New York City Police and Fire Departments. Additionally, the students walked to commemorate the lives lost in action. Pre-K through 5th-grade students walked around the block three times and middle school students walked up and down the stairs.
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The Trinidad Campus is holding an event to raise awareness about breast cancer on Friday for Breast Cancer Awareness day. They are having a student/staff basketball game and at halftime will give survivor awards to women who have overcome breast cancer. Students and staff will all wear pink and classes will make posters, banners, and signs to walk from the campus to Sherwood Recreation Center for the basketball game.
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Center City Public Charter Schools expand extra curricular and enrichment offerings thanks to
generous contributions from our supporters.
Thank you!
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Center City Public Charter Schools | 202-589-0202 |
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Website
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