Congratulations, Graduates!

What a wonderful celebration of hard-earned success!

Congratulations, Ian! 

Raycee and Lorelei, you look great!

The Honor Guard leads the graduates in.

The gym was packed as relatives and school community members came together to
honor our young men and women graduates. 

We are so proud of you three!

Come back to tell next year's students about college, 

Raycee and Lorelei!

Ian, come back in your US Marine Corps uniform!

PIDAMAYA to Our Friends in Milwaukee, WI

Some of Sister Patrice's Learning 4Life Success students at Rosalie's Restaurant

Today, we enjoyed a nice lunch at Rosalie's Restaurant. Some of us had never been to Rosalie's before. It was great. This was a way to celebrate a good year together in the Learning 4Life Success courses.

All year long, a group of elders who are sisters of Sister Patrice have been supporting our learning. With their help, over the whole school year, we were able to buy books, some art supplies, some materials for learning, and a "router" and cables so we could finally get on the internet without struggling with our terrible wifi connection. 

We even had enough left over to go out to lunch! What a tasty way to end the year. 

Pidamaya!

New Youth Center Plans

It took a lot of hard work at the end of the year, but we did it. We finished our Youth Center Planning project!

Here is a link where you can download the recommendations we put together. It is 15 pages with words, diagrams, and a lot of bar graphs and circle graphs. We used the data from our survey to decide what to put in the Youth Center. We "crunched" the data and then made our conclusions. 

It was hard to write the long paper. It is 15 pages and has bar graphs, circle graphs and diagrams. Sister Patrice helped by asking us to talk it out first. Then she typed it as we said it and then a lot of editing to make it all go together. We were glad she is good at this! We learned a lot about writing big important reports.


Next, we hope to go present it, maybe to the Tribal Council or to a committee.

It will be fun to see if any of the ideas we got from the survey in this project get used in the real Youth Center!

Students Celebrate at High School Awards Day

Tyrone: B Honor Roll

Hoksina earned two awards, including "Student of the Quarter"

 Congratulations! You make us proud!

Level 14 : Epic Quest!

This semester, we competed in a game called "Epic Quest." Sister Patrice made the game. Each class earned points for being on-task, learning, and showing the Dakota values. The morning class, Grade 11 and 12, competed against the afternoon Math group, Grade 9.

Thanks to the roll of the  "Magic Cube," we multiplied by five to victory!

It was a tough challenge! First one class got ahead, then the other did! Sometimes rolling the "Magic Cube," which multiplied our points earned, was the only thing that saved our lead!

On May 16, we finished. The Math Group, 5th hour, WON!! They earned 3,491,500 points!

Jaden and Hoksina with their Level 14 Awards

Although four students in Gr. 11/12 got to Level 12,  freshmen Nyton, Hoksina, and Jaden all got to Level 14! They received an award for "Leveling up" through their hard work and improved on-task behavior. 

The winning team had a chance to play basketball instead of doing math on Tuesday.

Way to go, Guys!!

The Last Days of Math Class

Here's proof:

Hoksina's stellated dodecahedron... in the works!

The last days of math class can be filled with as much learning as the rest of them!

Jaden's strategy- build it flat, then fold it into three dimensions.

"Look at this one! I can't believe there are so many vertices! I need more marshmallows!"

Folding the cuboctohedron. Squares and equilateral triangles are the
two-dimensional polygons that make up this complex polyhedron.

We also explored some "nets" of the regular polyhedrons we've been working with. 

A "net" is the "unfolded" figure of a polyhedron. So, the net for a cube looks like this:

We tried folding some nets but we ran out of time!

(Comment heard as we noticed the time: "How come math class is so short? We never get to finish with the good stuff!")

Oh, Nooooo! WATCH OUT! It's a...

..... dodecahedron !

And it nearly took over our Math Class!!

It all started innocently enough.

Polygons.

I mean, what is not to like about scalene triangles, trapezoids , or that "drunken square," the rhombus (other than having to spell them correctly)?

It would have been simple enough to stick with two dimensions. But, no. It's nearly the end of the year. And, everyone else in the building is doing nothing much. But us? We end up with a pile of toothpicks, a pile of mini-marshmallows, a computer program, and a progressive 3-d building challenge.

"Can you build this without eating all your VERTICES?" she wanted to know.

Tetrahedron by Hoksina

(A marshmallow is a vertex, by the way.)

We started small... the 3 d polyhedron with the fewest vertices was the tetrahedron. We proved this, because if you took any vertex away, we ended up with a plane old polygon, a triangle, which everyone knows is 2 d. (And yes, plane is a pun.)

Cube by Jaden: 6 faces, 8 vertices, 12 edges

Then, we got a bit more complex. The cube is the most common polyhedron around here. There are a lot of examples. Dice. Boxes. Blocks. Ice cubes. Plus, we actually say "cube" more than we say "tetrahedron." (We also spell it a lot easier!)

Nyton bravely attempts a dodecahedron.

Before we knew it, we had ventured down the dangerous path towards octahedrons, icosahedrons, and, yes, the infamous dodecahedron, with its 12 faces (each being a pentagon, by the way!), 20 vertices and 30 edges.



That's a lotta marshmallows!

Will we conquer the dodecahedron, or will it conquer us????

Tune in tomorrow (or Monday, depending on attendance) to find out!

Awwwww...that's a cute....

... angle you've got there!

We created mobiles showing points, lines,
and angles. (Photo by Hoksina)

Actually, it's an angle of less than 90 degrees. 

Our 5th hour math class rolled their eyes a bit when Sister Patrice introduced our final unit for this year on Monday.

"Gee, I'm a tree!"  ("Geometry"- get it?)

"I'm so cute," says the acute angle to "Mr. Right."

We identified points, lines, line segments, and rays as well as acute, obtuse and right angles. We also learned about straight angles, supplementary angles, and complimentary angles. And we found samples of parallel line segments and perpendicular line segments all around our classroom.

We had fun learning to measure the "degrees of rotation" using a special tool called a protractor.

And, of course, we learned how to write all this in "math language." 

Even the challenges of angles greater than 180 degrees didn't trick us once we realized that an angle is just an arc, part of a circle. And, of course, a circle is 360 degrees!

Measure carefully, and know your acute from your obtuse!

We worked hard all week. Just because it's May does not mean we need to stop learning! 

Since we managed to earn a "Magic Cube" roll almost every single day (and since we stayed on task all period today), Janel brought us a delicious treat, hot (spicy!) nacho cheese dip with chips, to celebrate Cinco de Mayo in style! (Hey, stop laughing- it is hard to find a holiday with an actual NUMBER in it for celebrating in a MATH class, ya know!?)

Every math class should have a resident chef!!

Nyton gives this a "thumbs up."

Jaden gives it a "thumbs-up!"

Hoksina gives it a "thumbs-up," too!

Stay tuned for next week. Rumor has it we are going to be building something.... 

They got to go to Washington, DC this week, so we ....

... went to Japan, Canada, Bahamas, Egypt, Los Angeles, Brazil, and the Galapagos Islands!

Shelby, Tre, and Lorelei went to Washington, DC as part of our school's Close Up program. The rest of us had to stay home.

Or so we thought....

This week featured a five-day hands-on activity called Explore Tour 360.

Our classroom is too small for all this learning! (So, we took over the hallway, too!)

First, we learned how to use the "satellite view" on Google Maps to survey an area from above. We were amazed at how far the satellite cameras could "zoom" in! 

Sisseton- Intersection of Hwy 10 and Veterans Ave via Satellite view

We found our homes and our school and worked out what season and time of day the satellite photo was taken by studying the shadows, foliage (that means trees and other growing things), and cars. 

Street view at Hwy 10 and Veterans, Sisseton SD

Then, by combining Google Maps with Google Street View, we toured a variety of cities and geographic locations using 360 degree, panorama photos. We also toured Washington, DC virtually, and saw the Washington Monument, the Reflecting Pools, and many other locations that our colleagues Shelby, Lorelei, and Tre were probably also seeing.

It was an amazing immersive experience to go to dogsledding in Canada, climbing in Japan, and even diving with dolphins in Bermuda. Each of us explored a location in 360 and wrote a short descriptive paragraph about what we viewed. If you want to try this yourself, go to these links: Visit the Amazing Galapagos Islands, including underwater! Go to Japan! Dog Sledding in Canada

We also selected additional places we, personally, would enjoy going to and virtually visited those as well. Some of our choices included: London, Egypt, Canada, Bahamas, Compton, CA, Minneapolis, and even Sister Patrice's old neighborhood in Milwaukee, WI. Most of our 360 degree touring was with still photos, but we also tried several immersive 360 videos. We looked at the expensive cameras used for producing these videos. 

On Friday, we actually created our own 360 photos! We used an iPad and an Android smartphone. 

Viewing the 360 panorama taken by Tyrone.

We did interior shots (inside the building) and exterior shots (outside.) We did not post them to public view yet, but if you download and install the Street View App for free, you can pan around to see the 360 degree view from outside our school's front door. It's pretty cool.

Link to Exterior View (needs Street View app or it is distorted.)

The sharks crept up behind Tyrone.

Finally, we used a pair of virtual reality goggles to experience several professionally made immersive scenes. One was a swim among hammerhead sharks! We gasped when we looked behind us and the shark was right there! Another was a really scary roller coaster ride. Viewing it in 3D through the goggles made us "feel" the drops in our stomach. We also tried being virtually part of a 1776 battle with the Redcoats in an US Revolutionary War simulation. Luckily, none of us were wounded. All of these were really excellent!

Viewing the roller coaster in immersive 3d.
No screaming allowed!

This was a fun way to use tech to learn about geography, cultures, nature, satellites, cameras, and how Google Maps can offer us a new way to "visit" many places across the entire world!

The blue shows where Google has already traveled in their special car with a 360 camera on top.

New Youth Center?

The tribal newspaper recently reported that the site of the old Tiospa Zina Tribal School would become a new tribal youth center. We decided we'd help. We are going to make a proposal to give to the Council. It will have ideas and suggestions from many different people in it. We have to get it done before the end of school! Here is what we did so far:


First, we used Pinterest and the internet to look at many youth centers around the world. We looked at the design. We looked at the interior and exterior. We also talked about youth centers we ourselves had been to. We made lots of lists of ideas on the board.

Next, we created a survey. It is for youth and kids and parents to tell us what kind of things they want at the new youth center. Here is the link if you want to take the survey: https://goo.gl/forms/0XazDsF2xGZkgllJ2 

We can peek at the results but the public cannot. It is anonymous. So far, in just one day, we got 30 responses. There are a lot of questions. Until the survey is done, the information we have is preliminary. That means we cannot really use it yet. We will use it to make suggestions in our proposal. We will make some graphs and charts and put them on our website here, also.

Today, we measured the "footprint" of the old TZ building. We will use the measurements to make several floor plans for our proposal for the new youth center.

We also measured the "green space" around the foundation.

We used three different ways to measure: a 25 foot tape measure, a 100 foot rope, and a tool that you roll to get a more precise measurement. Each team measured with all three methods.

Measuring in a straight line is important.

We had to work carefully at the job site. We got permission from the Tribal Administration before we went to do the measuring.

We had to work around obstacles!

The different ways of measuring gave us some different measurements. We took careful notes. We talked about why some methods (rope) were not as exact as other methods.


Then we walked back to school. We decided on a scale of 1 inch = 10 feet for our floor plans. We made the "footprint" on paper. 




Tomorrow we will start to work on the floor plans. The floor plans will be in scale, like a blueprint. Architects and engineers make detailed blueprints. Ours will need to be a little more simple.  But, it will be good enough to put in our proposal!