Digital Literacy for SHS
Meredith Dutra, Heather Waters

With students getting most of their news and information from social media we would like to explore the possibility of creating resources for teachers to use with their students to make them informed media consumers. Before and during the pandemic the amount of true and false information that was taken in from social media increased drastically. Students are getting their news and entertainment from many sources and they are shaping their political and personal experiences and viewpoints. Together with outside experts, we would like to help students navigate this changing landscape and help develop a growth mindset when media and technology that continues to change around them. 

Poetry in Color and Sound
Andrew Brown, Colin McGrath, Mollie McNealy, Michelle Asch

Music and art will intersect in a collaboration of color and sound. Students will create art projects that come to life with sound as they are "performed on" using Specdrums (rings that convert color to sound when coded and played like a drum or piano). Using a poem, students will create a visual representation of themes from the poem. They will then code sounds that connect to the theme by creating unique musical compositions that can be explored and shared by any individual.

SMS Today News Show
Meghan Lahey, Dan Boniello, Michael Pincus

 In March 2021, we launched a pilot daily news program at SMS to help build community and connection in the midst of a very fragmented and stressful year of COVID.  What began in the tiny back room of the library has blossomed into a major daily news show.  Every Keystone group in the Middle School tunes in every morning and the show is hosted by students and staff from across the building. The news helps build community and establishes a common theme/message for each day. Over the course of the year we will have over 200 different hosts.  The goal for this project is to continue to build on the news show as an integral component of our advisory program to include new segments, new physical elements to the studio, and to incorporate the district DEI initiative in as many ways as possible.

An Alternate Sequence of Science Courses
Mike Giordano, Chris Sipe, Ben Drexel, Dan Meiselman

A thought experiment in development of an integrated senior science course. The course will be a fusion of honors geology and AP Environmental science. We think it is imperative that every student learns about the necessity of sustainability as well as the energy resources needed by a modern society. We want students to examine modern day problems and come up with some potential solutions. To this end, we hope to leverage the content of the previous disciplines.