Be Respectful Be Responsible Strive for Excellence
I n t e r n a t i o n a l
S c h o o l
0 f
K r a k o w
Tolerance Project On March 16th a group of approximately 50 students from the American International School of Vienna arrived in Krakow for the Tolerance Project. This project included visiting World War II museums, viewing historical land marks, and even learning a typical Jewish dance. Eight ISK High School students joined the Vienna students. The 60 of us, ISK and Vienna students, were split into groups of 7 or 8, joined with a teacher and guide, and sent on our way.
This project was a wonderful opportunity to get to know other students and dig deeper into Krakow’s spectacular history. But after touring around the city’s museums and historical sites, the Vienna students were ready to see the modern city. Again, being split into groups, the Krakow students presented the Vienna students with a scavenger hunt. To complete the hunt, students had to walk through the Main Market Square, the Barbakan, and the Royal Castle. They also had to find a restaurant serving Polish cuisine to eat dinner! The next day, the students from Vienna ventured forth alone on their way to the German-built Auschwitz Concentration Camp Museum. On the evening before the Vienna students left, a splendid meal at the restaurant Miod i Wino was served, where the ISK students joined them for the last time to say their goodbyes and reflect on the superb time they had. Mr. Haberberg also joined the group prior to the dinner to answer some questions the students had regarding what it is like now to be a Jew in Krakow. Overall, I believe the trip was a complete success - students worked together, and the true meaning of tolerance is now instilled in each one of us.
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ISK VOICE March 2012, Volume 7, Edition 6
6 Knowledge Bowl Tolerance Project............................................ 2 World Educational Games 2012.................... 4 Knowledge Bowl in Kiev................................ 6
10 Eager Young Minds
Science Fair 2012........................................... 10 Chemistry Experiments............................... 12 Biology Experiments.................................... 14 Physics Experiments..................................... 16 Science Fair in Elementary School............. 18 Science Geeks of Grade 3............................ 20
22 The Youngest Scientists
Science of Parachutes and Boats............... 22 Pi Day.............................................................. 24 St. Patrick’s Week.......................................... 26 Dr. Seuss Week.............................................. 27
27 Dr. Seuss Reading Fun
World Education Games 2012
Math - Top 10 correct answers
Spelling - Top 10 correct answers
1
Joanna M
Grade 7
14405
1
Daniel L
Grade 4
729
2
Natalia H
Grade 7
3882
2
Sophie v.W. Grade 8
238
3
Stas M
Grade 6
3750
3
Antonia R
Grade 3
221
4
Gabriel H
Grade 8
3475
4
Daniel H
Grade 8
147
5
Quentin F
Grade 8
2623
5
Kevin A
Grade 1
144
6
Magda B
Grade 7
1908
6
Megan V
Grade 5
132
7
Enrique A
Grade 8
1548
7
Zosia S
Grade 5
125
8
Chiara M
Grade 2
1478
8
Adrianna S
Grade 3
54
9
Arthur M
Grade 8
1340
9
Joanna M
Grade 7
35
10
Raphael H
Grade 5
1241
10
Tomasz Z
Grade 1
27
Math - Top 10 highest scores
4
Spelling - Top 8 highest scores
1
Joanna M
Grade 7
70
1
Daniel L
Grade 4
28
2
Gabriel H
Grade 8
64
2
Daniel H
Grade 8
22
3
Magda B
Grade 7
63
3
Adrianna S
Grade 3
20
4
Natalia H
Grade 7
62
4
Sophie v.W. Grade 8
19
5
Quentin F
Grade 8
58
5
Joanna M
Grade 7
17
6
Enrique A
Grade 8
58
6
Antonia R
Grade 3
17
7
Stas M
Grade 6
56
7
Megan V
Grade 5
17
8
Arthur M
Grade 8
55
8
Zosia S
Grade 5
17
9
Wolf v.W.
Grade 7
51
10
Daniel H
Grade 8
51
World Education Games March 6-8
Competition Results
April Events Calendar Apr. 1st - MS Knowledge Bowl Apr. 5th - End of 3rd Quarter Apr. 6th - 9th - Spring Weekend Apr. 16th - 27th - Read-a-thon Apr. 20th - Spring Show Apr. 25th - Portfolio/Parent Teacher Night Apr. 26th - 29th - MS Cultural Arts Apr. 30th - Spring Break
Did you know ISK has a Facebook page?? If you ‘LIKE’ the International School of Krakow on Facebook, you will get all of the up-to-date information on what is happening at the school! It is a great way to stay informed of school activities.
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Knowledge Bowl CEESA
Kiev Ukraine
Middle School ISK
6
competition
The competition at the CEESA Middle School Knowledge Bowl has come to an end and our ISK students had a great time. The Knowledge Bowl was hosted by the Kiev International School from March 29th to April 1st. We are happy to say that we brought home the 2nd place trophy! There was a lot of tension as the double elimination portion of the competition got underway. The drama started when we realized that ISK A and ISK B would have to play each other in the first round. Unfortunately, Team A (Gabriel, Aga, and Magda) lost this game and the next and were eliminated. They took this in stride and focused their efforts on supporting the remaining two teams. Both the B (Peter, Sophie, and Cecilia) and C (Daniel, Natalia, and Stas) teams won their first two games. In the third round, team B lost a very close match and team C was able to get the victory. Not so lucky in their 4th game, Team C lost to join ISK B in the 1-loss bracket. They were on track for an elimination game, but Team B lost another very close game (15-13) to exit the tournament. Then came the amazing run of Team C. They were able to get 3 straight wins against PSI Kiev (a game that ended in a tie, which ISK won in a tiebreaker round), Moscow C (19 - 11), and Kiev A (16 - 11). This set things up for a dramatic championship game rematch of last year’s final - ISK C against Moscow A. For the second year in a row Daniel and Natalia (with the addition of Stas this year) of ISK went up against Henry and Yevgen (with the addition of Yoon) of Moscow in the final game of the Knowledge Bowl. What an exciting game this turned out to be. After falling behind 7 - 3 in the Speed round, ISK C came back to tie it with the first 2 questions in the Toss-up round. The two teams traded correct answers to be tied after 20 of the 25 questions in the round. The last five questions didn’t go our way though, as Moscow took 4 of them to ISK’s 0. The final score was Moscow A 19, ISK C 11. It was very exciting and the whole ISK team was very happy to have participated.
Team A: Gabriel, Agnieszka, Magda
Team B: Peter, Sophie, Cecilia
Team C: Daniel, Stas, Natalia
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After the competition ended, it was time for a 2-hour walking tour of the downtown section of Kiev. The students kept their spirits up despite the cold temperature and the rain as they saw some of the beautiful sites of the city. The next day we were able to do a bit more sightseeing before being taken to the airport for the journey home. Everyone had a great time and we enjoyed the experience of visiting a new country together! -by Susan Oswald
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Student Perspective
Kyiv was amazing, but frigid. In between the competition and the tours of the city we all had a blast. What I liked most on this trip was the nerve-racking head to head competitions. You had to be ready for any kind of questions and never knew what they would throw at you. Also you couldn’t stall for a second while playing or else your opponents would cream you. It was part trivia and part reflexes. You had to be able to make educated guesses, be lucky and have a “buzzer-finger.” All the other teams were nice and we all made lots of new friends. If I weren’t leaving next year I would definitely go on the Knowledge Bowl trip. by Peter G8
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ISK
Science
10
Fair
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Chemistry For T he S enses
Magdalena K., Sage M., and Caroline M. from Grade 10 did a science fair project about moisturizing creams called, “Cream Through the Ages.� Our goal was to create multiple creams that were used throughout history. We used a base of beeswax, water, and olive oil to produce our own type of creams, adding a variety of scents and either red or blue food coloring, as well. After a month of hard work, we perfected our cream using trial and error. During the presentation, we mainly talked about the history of cream, but also about why it is important and the chemical point of view of making them. At the end, we had a hands-on experiment with all the grades where they made their own, original creams by adding various scents and colors. by Sage, Magda and Caroline Grade 10
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Chemical
re a c t i o n s
When we started thinking about the Science Fair, we wanted to come up with something cool looking and exciting, but we also wanted the audience to learn. First we came up with an experiment we wanted to do and then how we could relate it to a topic. The topic we chose was speeding up the rate of chemical reactions. Our mission was to find things that would make reactions happen faster. To conclude, we found that concentration, temperature, surface and catalysts are all factors, which speed up the rate of reactions. by Gabriel and Simon Grade 10
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During the science fair Cem, Wolf, Joanna, and I did an experiment about blood pressure. We wanted to find out what influence stress has blood pressure and pulse. So we experimented on different people in middle school by making them watch a boring weather forecast, and an exciting and suspenseful horror trailer for Psycho. As we were doing this, we measured their blood pressure before and after the clips to compare results. Can you guess what happened after watching the horror movie? And the weather clip? If you thought that the blood pressure would rise after watching the horror movie and fall or stay the same during the weather forecast then you were 100% correct! by Natalia H. Grade 7
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Experimenting with the
subliminal On March 27, Grade 0 kids all the way to 10th grade students participated in the 2012 ISK Science Fair. Grade 9 divided into two groups to have the chance to get more projects done and be able to show different ideas. I was in a group with Alex and Mateusz and we had an exciting time setting up an experiment about subliminal messages. During a biology class discussion, a question arose “Do subliminal messages actually work?” We didn’t waste any time, but went to try and find out! Mateusz, Alex and I did a little background research before jumping straight into the experiment. Subliminal messages have, for many years, been used in places like cinemas to get people to buy more popcorn or coca cola. Of course, it is now illegal in countries like Poland because it’s not correct to trick and confuse people (without them even knowing) into doing certain things. Afterwards we agreed that we would try to get people into choosing a certain color of M&Ms: something simple and not too extreme. We prepared two Kun fu Panda 2 trailers, because we felt that everybody knew what it was, and added a subliminal message to one of them. To do this we simply flashed the word “Green” five times, in a time smaller than a second, and made sure one could only see the white flash, but not the actual word. We hoped that the students who had watched the video with the subliminal message would mostly pick green M&Ms (out of a bowl of green, yellow, red and brown M&Ms). To our surprise the experiment actually worked! About 12 people picked the green M&Ms and they didn’t even know what was going on. It was probably even more shocking to them to find out the results when they acted as our audience at the actual fair. From this year’s science fair we learned a lot both from our own projects and by carefully listening to other people. It was rather interesting to see how differently each grade reacted as we talked and even though the younger kids probably got more fascinated by the chocolate or the cartoon trailer, I’m sure they all learned something too! by Daiana A. Grade 9
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Angles and Force Our project for the science fair was so much fun. Our group built a slingshot and tried to predict where the baseball we were shooting would land. We had lots of fun building it and testing it even though sometimes the job got a bit meticulous. Our group cooperated perfectly and we worked quickly. On the day of the Science Fair we shot some of our baseballs so far they went over the fence! It was pretty astounding. Next year we all look forward to taking chemistry and blowing stuff up for the Science Fair together. by Daniel, Peter and Sophie G8
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Music, Fire and Waves
Rubens Tube by Cecilia, Frankie and Agnieszka G8 Our science fair experiment was the Rubens Tube. The purpose of this experiment was to see sound waves. We put together a large tube that shot flames up through its holes and then played music through the tube to compare the length of sound waves. Results: frequency = 440 Hz (A sound) half of a wavelength = 37 cm
There is a fundamental relation between wave’s frequency, wavelength and speed: speed of sound = wavelength x frequency
frequency = 500 Hz half of a wavelength = 32 cm
speed of sound for 440 Hz = 440 Hz * 0.37 m * 2 = 325 m/s speed of sound for 500 Hz = 500 Hz * 0.32 m * 2 = 320 m/s
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Science Fair in Elementary School in Pictures
For the science fair I did an experiment about growing sprouts with wine. I learned that the sprouts with wine did not sprout but the sprouts with water grew very well! I enjoyed pouring the wine and water the most. by Zosia
For the science fair we did an experiment about pinwheel blades. We learned that pinwheels spin steadily when the blades are balanced. We enjoyed trying to point the hair dryer at the pinwheel the most. by Cora and Eve
Science Geek For the science fair I did an experiment about an apple browning and what stops it. I learned about why citric juices stops an apple from turning brown and why an apple turns brown. I enjoyed doing the experiment at home the most. The first time I presented to a middle school person, I got nervous. But then, I started to like presenting to people. by Serena For the science fair I did an experiment about dropping an egg out of a 2nd story window. I learned that the smaller the object, the slower it falls. I enjoyed watching the egg not break when it hit the ground. by Nicholas
For the science fair we did an experiment about plants and if they grow better in clean water or in water with black paint in it. We learned that the plant in the clean water would grow better. We enjoyed buying the plants and watering the plants and watching them grow. by Kevin and Bo
For the science fair we did an experiment about flowers changing color when they are put in food coloring mixed with water. We learned that the color of the food coloring doesn’t matter because the flower had the same amounts of food coloring to drink. We enjoyed looking at the flower when it was changing color and especially enjoyed when all of the petals changed color. We thought talking to people would be scary, but it wasn’t scary at all. by Antonia and Adrianna For the science fair I did an experiment about the strength of different bridges. I learned that a bridge doesn’t have to be thick to be strong and that vertical edges of paper support the bridge well. I enjoyed making each bridge collapse under metal balls. For my experiment I used construction paper, metal balls, books, milk cartons, a ruler, and lego blocks. by Maciek For the science fair I did an experiment about making a soda and vinegar bomb. I learned that when you mix things there is a reaction. There are two kinds of reactions, they are called exothermic and endothermic. I enjoyed watching the explosion the most. by Alex
ks of Grade 3 For the science fair I did an experiment about potato sprouts. I learned that potato sprouts grow towards the sun. I enjoyed getting ready for my experiment the most. by Jakub
For the science fair we did an experiment about mixing different materials to make water change colour to blue. We learned about how starch and iodine can change the colour of different things. We enjoyed the last part, which showed that water changes colour slowly. by Julia and Anna
Science of Parac as Discovered and Told by Our Kindergartners
hutes and Boats
PI D a y 3.14
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Pi Day is becoming a real ISK tradition. It is annualy celebrated on the 14th of March in tribute to Pi. Pi is a never ending number equal to the quotient of a circle’s circumference and diameter. So far, hundreds of thousands of its digits have been calculated, but no end has been reached. The first three are 3.14, hence the fixed date of Pi Day. This year, Pi Day in ISK was quite unique and more interesting and engaging than ever. Students from the whole elementary and middle school worked hard in preparing decorations for the special day. High school students had the task of helping with the actual planning and set up of the event. After days of preparation, the day finally came. Stations across the school were organized and classes were visiting them one by one. The stations featured testing Pi in action, making literate and artistic depictions of the number, and even solving challenging problems featuring Pi. In addition to this, a movie composed of pictures from the 2012 Math Counts Trip was played. Wonderful poems and drawings were created and posted in the High School Lounge, while everyone had great fun. The culmination point of the whole event was a Math Counts-style competition conducted in the ISK MPR. Middle and High school students were writing tests the preceding days in order for the Pi Day team to get the school top ten to participate in the competition. It went as follows: students were called out and battled mathematically against each other. They were playing against those who wrote the test slightly better until two were left to play in the ‘grand finale’. As time pressed, the correct answers required to win a game were gradually decreased, and as a result the last matches were sudden death, where a single correct answer won the day. The intensity rose as participants lost in seconds. In the end, Daniel H. emerged victorious and received a gift as compensation for his speed and precision in the competition. Congratulations! The day passed very quickly, and the event was a success. It definitely left a lot of pleasant memories, and now we all can’t wait till next year’s edition! by Mateusz G9
413
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T
he luck of the Irish was with the Grade 0 students during the month of March as we prepared for St. Patrick’s Day. That month, students read and completed a couple of different mini books focusing on leprechauns and St. Patrick’s Day. Students used their creativity and imaginations as they made and wrote about transforming shamrocks into different things. Grade 0 students also learned some new Gaelic words, and were excited about kicking up their feet, as they danced the Irish Jig. What a celebration we had! Ms. McKinnan, Grade 0A
St. Patrick’s week
Dr. Seuss Week G
rade 0 students began March celebrating a week of fun with Dr. Seuss. On his birthday, we enjoyed some nice cupcakes, and for one whole week we read over 7 different rhyming stories of Dr. Seuss, including Cat in the Hat. How much fun did we have as we run lines laughing and reading Dr. Seuss. Grade 0 students also realized that they do like green eggs and ham, on a boat, with a goat, in the class, with a glass, yum, yum, yum! Ms. McKinnan, Grade 0A