The Greene County Recorder had an article about William Monroe High School senior Amanda Snead. She is launching a literary magazine for the community as a safe space for people to share their creative skills. It’s part of Snead’s Blue Ridge Virtual Governor’s School senior internship. READ THE ARTICLE
Orange County BRVGS Student Caring for His Community
Michael Jamerson attends Orange County High School and is the student council president. He has been working on "snack packs," which are bags filled with an array of healthy snacks. Michael packed 90 bags and delivered them to Orange County elementary students right before the winter break to provide something nutrious over the break.
Michael also organized "Be a Santa to a Senior." He put up a giving tree with paper ornaments. On the ornaments were written a wish from a senoir citizen. Orange County students and staff adopted over 75 seniour citizens from the local community! Great job!
BRVGS Students Take Part in the Hour of Code
Computers are everywhere, changing every industry on the planet. But fewer than half of all schools teach computer science. Good news is, we’re on our way to change this. If you've heard about the Hour of Code before, you might know it made history. More than 100 million students have tried an Hour of Code.With the Hour of Code, computer science has been on homepages of Google, MSN, Yahoo! and Disney. Over 100 partners have joined together to support this movement. Every Apple Store in the world has hosted an Hour of Code. President Obama wrote his first line of code as part of the campaign.
This year, BRVGS helped to make it even bigger. Our AP Computer Science courses joined in for the Hour of Code 2016. During Computer Science Education Week, December 5-11, our students conducted several Hours of Code for a variety of audiences.
Check out what our students did during the week...
- In Fluvanna, Jacob and Austin taught their peers at the high school how to animate their names using Codecademy.
- Owen also taught a Fluco high school class how to code, using Lightbot and other online activities.
- Reanna and Grace went to a Fluco 8th grade class for two days and used a popular code environment called Scratch to show them the power of programming.
- Madi, Casey, Newlin, and Sophia went to Fluvanna Middle School to teach their lesson over two days - the first day was unplugged (no computers), and the second day was “plugged”, using Play Lab.
- And Kylie, Kat, and Emily taught the hour of code to a group of Girl Scout cadets in Fluvanna County, using the Code Combat activity.
- Over at William Monroe Middle School, Callie and Grace took the hour of code into a typing class to show coding in Minecraft.
- Isaac, Ben and David went to Nathanael Greene Elementary School in Greene County and visited a 4th grade class and showed them an unplugged activity called My Robotic Friends, and then Lightbot on the computers. And they even brought in a local programming specialist as a guest speaker, to help inspire the students!
- We found Camden, Maben, and Kade in the Goochland High School library, also using the Minecraft activity with their peers.
- Madison County High School saw Alex and Harold teach the yearbook staff all about graphics and coding using Hello Processing.
- And Jason went to 3 different Orange County Public libraries to conduct 2-hour sessions for all ages, using a variety of online and offline activities. He was even joined by Elliott, a former AP CS student, who wanted to continue inspiring students!
- Sam took his hour the farthest - he traveled to Virginia Beach and taught the Bitsbox hour of code to Providence Elementary School.
The Hour of Code, organized by the nonprofit Code.org and over 100 others, is a global movement that believes the students of today are ready to learn critical skills for 21st century success.
We hope you’ll join next year’s activities and take an hour in December to learn how to code!
BRVGS' UVA Engineering Course Presents their Projects at UVA
On Thursday, December 15th, 29 BRVGS students taking the UVA “Explorations in Engineering” Course offered through BRVGS presented their final projects to course Professor James Groves and to other students in the class, as well as to the BRVGS staff. The students set up their prototypes and information boards in the UVA Olsson Engineering building. They shared their research and findings with topics ranging from floating cell phone cases to earthquake proofing buildings to safer helmets. It was a day of learning and sharing, with many innovative and creative ideas highlighted in the presentations. The students did a great job presenting their projects, and BRVGS is proud of their efforts in this challenging course!
William Monroe's 10th Graders visited Professor James Landers' Laboratory
William Monroe's 10th graders visited Professor James Landers' microfluidics laboratory at the University of Virginia in October. By spinning "discs," that look just like a CD that have been altered with a laser, a scientist can test for genetic disorders, screen for drugs, or identify a person with just one drop of blood. It exciting to see with just a little creativity, innovation, and collaboration, an old school technology can be made useful to anyone. We had to leave early since the Department of Defense was meeting with them.
