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Academy Student Showcase: Spring 2020

May 12, 2020

By Nicole Endacott, Program Coordinator

Each person on the Academy team misses our extraordinary students! I, for one, am looking forward to being back in person to check progress on Rubik’s Cube solving times, see pictures of growing puppies and kittens, and hear everyone’s latest research interests and favorite jokes.

But even though we miss seeing each other in person, we have been more thankful than ever for technology! It was great to be able to finish out the spring session of Academy virtually and to see ingenious work submissions rolling in. Seeing how adaptable our students and teachers have been to the new format has made us excited to see what masterpieces emerge from our online summer session!

Here are three especially impressive student creations that were submitted during the virtual portion of the spring session:

  1. A creative story set within the Harry Potter universe. For their final project for “Harry Potter: Behind the Words,” which will also be offered this summer, students wrote multi-chapter stories that take place in the same world of the Harry Potter series. In addition to a delightful story, one student also created images by collaging pictures of Lego figures with online graphics. Here is one example, which finds Voldemort swimming in Hawaii:

  

  1. An excerpt of a poem from the perspective of an object. This was written for “How to Eat a Poem,” a class about sensory poetry for 6 to 9-year-olds. Lucy Blagg, who taught this delightfully creative class, will be teaching “Mythology of Many Lands” this summer.


I start as a flower.
I’m tart but not sour.
My favorite season is fall,
That’s when I grow tall. 

I’ll tell you who I am,
I’m part of a fruit.
I’m tasty when you squeeze me,
I’m small and I’m cute. 

Believe it or not,
I’m from this planet.
Let me introduce myself,
I’m the seed of a pomegranate!

  1. An invented species for a virtual IEA Aquarium. For their final project in “Marine Biodiversity,” students designed their own ecosystems, filled them with made-up species, and wrote about the ecological and evolutionary history of the community. Grayson Kent, who taught this and other animal courses, will be teaching Myths & Monsters, Ultimate Guide to Predators, Cenozoic Life and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

It was so difficult to choose just a few projects to showcase our students’ creativity, adaptability, and love of learning. To learn more about Summer Academy Online, visit our website and sign up to join us for our Virtual Open House. We can’t wait to see familiar and new faces in a few weeks when the session begins!