Ready, set...FIRE!

Catapult and trebuchet launch will be on Tuesday morning on the athletic field. We begin setting up at 8am and will launch 2 official goes for each of the 5 teams (one or two others might still represent) with 15min reset time in between rounds. Winners will announced in the distance category and recognition for design. Feel free to stop by, tho launches will be recorded so check back here for updates on Wednesday. Good luck to all of our hard learning teams.

Buch's Special Game - Elly Evans

Every Friday during 4th period we all are involved in some team building activity. It’s important for us to start the week on Monday as a Mosaic group and for us to end as a group at the end of Friday. 

Today we have a surprise from Mr. Buch. He has prepared a game where there are two groups and each person  in the circle is handed a picture. The pictures consist of random things or people like Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, The President and Mario as well as things like hand cuffs, fire, lotion, the Hollywood sign, a tractor, and a building made out of a shipping crate. 

Each person keeps their picture to themselves. Then we go around and each person speaks for one minute and includes their picture into a group story.

For those of you who don’t know, there is a catapult competition going on right now. Teams must build a catapult to launch a projectile the farthest to win. There are two different categories in the competition, the kit build and the free build. The kit build teams must build a catapult using only materials from a kit provided my Mosaic. The free build teams may use any materials to build their catapult, but it must fit inside a 6’x6’x6’ area. The competition will take place on Tuesday November 25. Get your catapults ready Mosaic!

Lights and sound - Tyler Dice

Tyler Dice wires up a red board.

Engineering is in the air! As electronics kits were handed out today, many students will get the opportunity to work with wiring and coding for the first time. Students, many of which are working in teams, will get to build everything from a button activated light, to a game of "Simon Says". Some students have also been tasked with building their own circuits and programs, and making circuits that accomplish everyday needs. We all are very excited to see what these teams create!

Cultures of Dominance Project - Elly Evans

The 9th graders have started a project where we learn about the Holocaust, Genocides, and creating a campaign that brings attention to pressing matters around the world. We have watched videos, and filled out research tables to deepen our knowledge of what happened during the Holocaust. We also researched the eight stages of Genocide and we had to figure out if a genocide can happen without all eight stages present.

Unity Garden Update - Parker Muck

In mosaic I was given the opportunity to work with my peers on what we call the unity garden. In this project we were tasked with developing a design that best utilizes the space regarding a garden.The materials that were provided to us by Ms. Hill are six planter boxes and $400. Any additions that exceed what is provided is up to the group to provide funding.

In this project I was assigned the position of brokering a deal with the CVHS DECA chapter to receive additional funding for bring the project further. Henceforth, I successfully made a deal to receive a small amount of funding from coffee sales in the Saber Store. Many thanks Mrs. Tiddens and her DECA team for their support!

The next step in this process will be to finalize our design concept presentation and wait for the SSN group to approve our idea.

This project is important to me because school finally contributes to something greater than just a grade this is an opportunity to make a difference in my school community, which I find invaluable in school and even life.

The Space - Jeremy Dortch

Students paint the room with carefully chosen colors
over fall break. All total,  over 40 volunteer hours
went in to painting.

As a group, the space design team had designed the rooms to increase student learning and engagement. Furniture was ordered to match the style and uses of each particular room. The work orders were sent through over fall break, but many of our items were not actually ordered due to the district Risk Management divison. Risk Management did not like that we were ordering rugs, a microwave, barstools and lamps. Risk Management also did not like the vendors that we ordered from, so they did not put any work orders through many vendors such as Ikea. Which we used to maximize our budget.

Parker Muck and I are going to meet with Risk Management to try to convince them to let us order what we want, and to let us order from non-district approved vendors. As a backup plan if that meeting fails, we are meeting with Seth Elliot from Office Scapes to help us design the room and order furniture, as Office Scapes is a district approved vendor. We were not told about the district approved vendors until after we put in the work order, but we are working hard to come up with a compromise. The new deadline for the room design project is January 2015. 

Presentations to Mosaic Partner Chris Cooper

On Thursday, 11 of our students presented their work for our first Mosaic Partner, Chris Cooper, founder of Real Good Writing, a copywriting start-up LLC in Denver.

He asked Mosaic students to create a uniform and appropriate brand for Real Good Writing, including designing a logo and slogan, business cards, invoices, letter heads and website. During this project, Chris met with students several times in the last 6 weeks, starting with an introductory Google Hangout, status update after several weeks and the final presentation. During the presentation, Chris provided oral feedback and questioned each team's decisions and goals.

Each team provided a clear and professional presentation, and Chris was impressed with the quality of the work and with the personal growth in each student from beginning to end.

Each student has been assessed in several English/Language Arts and Art standards in Project Foundry. Some students are still missing one or more writing components, but since Mosaic practices being "time agnostic" and focuses more on skill acquisition and learning, they can still submit that work for feedback and assessment from Michael Schneider.

To complete the project, each student has been asked to complete a self-evaluation in Project Foundry. Once that is complete, each student will receive specific and detailed evaluation and feedback from both Chris and Michael.

Overall, this was a fantastic start to Mosaic's effort to get students to work with and for clients outside the walls of Mosaic and CVHS.