Today was the calm before the scholars. 

After some much needed coffee and donuts, the Lucas Team dug into the logistics of setting up our spaces and preparing for the 32 scholars arriving on Monday. 

A big shout out to the whole Lucas Team: John Umekubo, Tom Diggs, Manny Quintero, Reynaldo Macias, Jillian Esby, Rebecca Waid, Dijanna Figueroa, and Gabi Marquez. This amazing group of educators showed up today with energy, enthusiasm and a clear passion for the craft of teaching. Another shout out to the founder of the Lucas Program, Kate Ward. Without her guiding spirit this week would not be possible. Thank you Kate. 

The schedule is set, the rooms are ready, our Hummingbird kits are begging to be put to use and as a team we are ready to Work Hard, Have Fun and Be Scholars.  

Stay Tuned! Lucas 2015 begins Monday, July 27th. 

"I want to go to this school!" someone yelled, as they learned about cellular transcription and translation in the science fun zone to start the day.

With guest teachers showing students how to Scratch, and Mrs. Ward overseeing a race to replicate the DNA-MRNA-protein production of a cell, Day 2 of LSP made students think, smile and work!  Today also saw hamburgers pleading not to be eaten, black holes conversing with stars,  and Scholars attempting to survive CHAOS with Mr. Diggs, before settling back into building circuits and programming with Mr. Umekubo.

All that thinking, though, made some people hot...so we went swimming, where a few learned about underwater SCUBA-diver code while most of the Scholars lived up the saying, "work hard, play hard:)". After a quick lunch of tacos, and a long stretch on the Meadow, the Scholars got back to work coding, characterizing, replicating and programming until the most popular block - Tinker Time!

Whether it's the choice to learn what they want, or the variety of hands-on activities, it seems that Lucas Scholars can't wait to get to the Tinker Time. Today's options included Scratch, the wind tunnel, Makey Makey, Scribblebots and wearable electronics.  With all this excitement and fun-style learning, tomorrow's surprises and activities have got to be awesome!

And awaaayy we go!

Today was a shift at LSP, as we moved from brain sweat to actual sweat. The morning was spent reading, discussing, arguing and deciding on what type of wave the Scholars wanted to investigate, and what type of experiment they wanted to design and build to test their hypotheses.

After an hour of researching, the corn starch, power tools, fish tanks and duct tape came out and we got to work. With a quick break for pizza and rolling down the hills, our fifteen Scholars spent the afternoon cutting cardboard, mixing oobleck, tweaking fans, positioning mirrors and being scientists with tool belts.

For "Tinker Time" today, the Scholars played with Tellegami, Explain Everything, iMovie, Exploratorium, and other apps on the iPads that interested them.

It was a great day!

Light waves.

Sound waves.

Wave machines.

Breaking waves.

Radiation waves.

Micro waves.

Wave models.

Causing waves.

Wave vibrations.

Ultra-violet waves.

Tinker with waves.

Waving goodbye.


Translation:) We had a GREAT day! After the general meeting to get started, the Scholars broke into two groups to learn how to make movies on their iPads and to study the effects of obstacles on streams of water. They got to put their hands into a "surf stream" and create their own waves, figuring out the differences between the waves in water and the waves we've been studying. After a quick snack, they switched and started the process all over again!

From the movie studio and the surfing, they moved to making waves in the pool with Mr. Cowman. A lot of splashing and learning later, they came up to play some four-square with the St. Matthew's student volunteers and eat lunch.

Then they began to study sound waves and make music with Ms. Sauerhoff, and learn about radiation and ultra-violet waves with Mr. Harlan.  And just like yesterday, Mr. U brought out some squishy, windy, sweet fun during "Tinker Time" that had all of the LSP staff, volunteers and Scholars laughing, learning and working together to investigate how things work and what we could build.

It was a great way to end the day!

How do you untie a knot made up of fourteen different people, twenty-eight hands and arms, and unlimited opinions? With patience, communication and a little bit of help.

The Lucas Scholars started the day learning in a physical way what Working Together, Having Fun and Being a Scholar really means. Then they dove into the details of their week, and got to put their hands on the iPads. They joined a community space called Edmodo set up specifically for them to interact and crunched some ideas about digital citizenship, waves and energy.

They proved to Mr. H that waves can indeed be used to communicate, and then tested their very own hypotheses about changing sound waves with iPads and straws.

After that, it was lunch time:)

Renewed and refreshed, the Scholars got down to business forming hypotheses, creating experiments and collecting data to prove themselves right or wrong!  In between they had a little bit of fun creating transverse and compression waves with Slinkys...

Then Mr. U showed up with some clay, circuit boards, alligator clips and laptops, and they proceeded to turn themselves into human conductors, playing video games and musical notes with the claps and taps of their hands!

Winding down with some smores and reflection, the Lucas Scholars set their goals for tomorrow and the rest of the week, deciding what they wanted to focus on for their culminating projects and who they wanted to work with. 

A lot of work!
A lot of fun!
A lot of learning!
Day One, in the books.