• Sycamore Academy National History Day 2016

Another great event at Sycamore Academy, aka SASCA (Sycamore Academy of Science and Cultural Arts), where they held an open house showing off the history projects their students made as part of National History Day.

The kindergarten classes studied Amelia Earhart, Isaac Newton and Henry Ford.

Replicas of Amelia Earhart's Kinner Airster  biplane made by some of the students.

The 2nd and 3rd grades (six classes) did group projects ranging from topics of US Presidents, civil rights, women's rights, inventors, astronauts and environmentalists. 

I liked this display not only because Jackie Robinson is a true American hero, but I thought the pieces of the bat and ball were clever too.

I asked Miss Dalesio for some details about the event.

Our school participates in National History Day, which is a national event where there's a theme each year. Students do a research project and put together a whole presentation on the theme of the year. 

This year's theme is Taking A Stand. 

They had to choose a person, or a group of people, in history who took a stand for something, and they research it and they present it. 

In the 4th and 5th grade [the project is] a poster [of the historical figure]. 

When you go through middle school [displays] you'll see that there are exhibit boards, some created websites, documentaries, performances, essays... they had a little bit more choice in their projects. 

I asked her, "How much time do they work on these projects?"

She responded, "[In] middle school, which I teach, we have done a lot of it in class and they've spent about two months of brainstorming topics, researching something they're interested in, narrowing down what they want to research further. Most of middle school projects were done in class."

These two exhibits weren't next to each other, or even in the same room, I just thought it would be interesting to show the diversity present, even among the current figures chosen.

One thing that a person might notice about the middle school projects is that there were none about Martin Luther King Jr. 

The reason why is they used MLK Jr as the guiding example of how the projects were to be done, and that basically eliminated him from being a subject this year.

Remember that Sesame Street game about ♪♫Three of these things belong together. Three of these things are kind of the same. Can you guess which one of these doesn't belong here?♪♫. Somehow I don't think that Genghis Khan belongs with Florence Nightingale, JFK and Mohamed Ali... not taking away the value of the project, just making a lighthearted juxtaposition. ☺

I'm not sure if anyone did a tally of most covered historical person during this event or not, but I'm guessing it was a toss up between JFK, Amelia Earhart, Harriet Tubman, with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in the mix too.

Sycamore Academy is comprised of 22 classes ranging from TK-8th (TK is Transitional Kindergarten). With about 550 students.

A look at one of the displays from the younger grades.

As an aside...
Through my travels of the SASCA corridors I happened upon this "math" problem. Since I saw my name at the top of it, I had to take a closer look.

The answer to this one is easy. 
 "How far from Carly does Joseph live?"  

That's a cinch. It all depends on how far from the cemetery that Carly lives, because that's where Joseph will be if he goes to her house for dinner. ☺

•          •          •

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history. 
— Aldous Huxley, 1894-1963

Wildomar Rap may be like the average person that doesn't learn much from the lessons of history, but at least he's on the ball enough to avoid dinner at Carly's house.