James C. Isabell School

August, September School Activities

Since the 21st of August, we had many different entertaining activities in our school, and more are upcoming!

On August 21st, 2010, the school hosted a delicious ice-cream kick off. The purpose was to let the community and staff meet before the 2010-2011 school year started.

The James C. Isabell School doors opened on August 23rd, 2010. Our anxious students came back to school and our excited teachers taught again.

Jason Ohler came to Teller to teach the secondary students about movie making. At the end of August, beginning of September, Mr. Ohler instructed our students how to make great iMovies. These iMovies he was instructing, were about our culture. The students, staff, and Mr. Ohler hosted the cultural digital stories and tasty dessert on September 2nd, 2010. The community came, watched the digital stories, and enjoyed a dessert. This was a joyful evening!

Mr. Geography Guy was in Teller from September 4th-6th, 2010. He worked with our energetic elementary students. They worked on amazing art & geography. Mr. Nichols has worked with our students in the past, and he loves to visit Teller.

All our junior high students attended the first junior high session at NACTEC September 7th-10th. They attended the junior high session with our friendly neighbors, Brevig Mission. They studied loads of careers while they were there. They had a blast experiencing NACTEC.

Three of our high school students (2 seniors, 1 junior) are taking a fall 2010 semester with UAF/NWC. One student is currently taking the Intensive Reading Development. Two of our bright students are whizzing through Elementary Algebra. Their classes started on 9/7/10. The reading student’s course is ending 12/14/10 and the math students’ class is ending 12/15/10. They use eLive for their courses.

Career Day took place at our school, for the 2010 year on September 10th, 2010. Many visitors and presenters were in our building. Students from Brevig and Wales also participated. Career Day is to help the students learn more about careers. Some business people gave scholarship applications or vocational school apps to the seniors. The community was welcomed to attend also.

Ten different organizations and businesses came to our school for Career Day. They were: Alaska State Troopers, Kawerak Family Services, Division of Juvenile Justice, NACTEC, NSHC, NSEDC, AK DOL, Kawerak Youth Employment Services, Kawerak Careers, and Museum Careers. Thank you everybody who assisted us in this event.

Five runners, John Baker, Kaitlin Topkok, Ryan Topkok, Jordan Eldridge, and Nicholas Baker, and their coach, Donald Eldridge traveled to the thrilling District Cross-Country Running Meet in Unalakleet on September 11th, 2010. Jordan received the gold medal and Ryan placed 4th in the Junior High Boys division. Congrats to all runners and their coach Donald Eldridge, for representing our school with great effort!

One of our elementary students attended a NACTEC session with our teacher, Sam McDonald. Their session was from September 13th-17th. They worked on Life/Career skills at NACTEC. She had an excellent time and made many new friends.

A physician came to Teller to give the students their physicals to play sports. She came from Brevig Mission, which is located 6 miles from Teller. The school physicals were from the 13th-17th of September (this month). Physicals are just to check if you’re healthy, and to be cleared to play our school sports.

FEA (Future Educators of Alaska) started on September 15th @ 4 PM. This was held at the Headstart. Any of our students from 5th grade on up, were allowed to join this extra-curricular activity. This event is a school club of people who would like to become educators. Thanks to Ms. Heather for starting our club.

Sewing is a cultural activity that Charlene (a tribal coordinator), and three wise elders were teaching. They were teaching sewing in our school from the dates of September 15th-17th from 3 to 5 PM. They were teaching people how to make kuspuks. Anyone ages 12-25 were welcomed to come.

Nome field trips are school-wide annually. This year the Nome trips were from the 20th-24th of September. The High School students toured Nome on Monday (20th); the Middle School toured Nome on Tuesday (21st). Elementary students had a blast in Nome from the 22nd-24th. Every group of students learned about the places they visited and possible career opportunities.

One senior and one junior are attending the NACTEC Career Exploration session from September 20th-October 1st, 2010. They will be interviewing people in Nome who have careers. They will learn about most careers in Nome. If they have successfully represented themselves and our school during this session, they will be touring college and some vocational schools in the Anchorage area in October. Good luck students!

The largest activity of August/September was the 6th Annual Teller Cultural Festival on September 24th and 25th, 2010. There were 5 dance groups, out-of-town visitors, and our community at this event. The dance groups were: Teller, Golovin, White Mountain, Brevig, and King Island. The dancers/drummers and singers were awesome. This was a very traditional festival. We had Eskimo dancing every night, and workshops during the day on Saturday. This weekend was very interesting for everyone!

The Regional Cross-Country Running meet was in Nome on September 25, four junior high runners attended, along with their coach.
Three sports started couple days ago, which were High school volleyball, Elementary/Junior High Wrestling and Cheerleading. We usually have a volleyball team every year. Charlene Isabell has been the coach in the past years, but this year Thomas Belleque is our coach. Volleyball is an incredible, enjoyable sport. The Cheerleading and Wrestling Regionals are in Unalakleet. ***Let’s go AKLAQS!***

James C. Isabell School in Teller held their 1st Annual Robot Rodeo on January 19, 2010. The purpose for this Robot Rodeo was to try out the new robots the students had built and to see who was best at controlling them. Our special guests were the superintendent, Jim Hickerson and Randy Fleharty, BSSD’s Technology Integration Facilitator.

We used a Double Elimination Bracket and a challenge developed cooperatively by the students and the instructor. Mr. Weemes, whose science classes created the Robot Rodeo Challenge said, “We looked at the performance parameters of our syringe-bot and designed a challenge that mimicked the tasks of similar industrial robots. We decided the challenge should be complex but not lengthy.”

The task was to move a triangular shaped stack of three plastic objects from their starting location into an adjacent container. The participants collectively developed the guidelines and rules for the competition. To get out of the rodeo, you had to lose twice. There was a winner’s bracket and a loser’s bracket. The losers competed each other and the winners did too, to see who the winner was.

The winner was John Baker and 2nd place was Brandi Oquilluk. 3rd was James Isabell. Our principal Jay Thomas said, “I think the rodeo was great. It looked like all the kids were having a good time. I also liked watching the kids have a head-to-head challenge.”

Mr. Weemes said, “Our robotics program is an in-depth exploration of robotic construction and usage. Most robotic programs have some form of competition as a summative assessment as well as a culminating activity that celebrates learning. Students are applying their understandings about the processes and products of robotic engineering. We are extending this knowledge by engaging a bionic hand construction project and other more complex opportunities.”

I asked a young observer, Darrin Topkok what he thought of the rodeo and he said, “It looks like a lot of fun and sounds awesome; I can’t wait until I can participate!” Ryan Topkok exclaimed, “I liked it when Brandi was unstoppable and couldn’t lose!”

Last week we took the high schoolers up-river to fish for Northern Pike. The groups traveled by snowmachine and sleds. We caught about 30, with a few of them over 40 ” and 8-10 pounds. The students delivered them to the local Elders. Homemade silver and ivory spoons were used with hand held sticks through 10″ holes. The ice on the river was three feet thick .

Teller High School had a visitor recently. He is an associate professor at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, doing research on Global Warming. He is traveling all over Alaska by snow machine and measuring the depth of the permafrost. He is recording some findings in the Teller area. Kenji Yoshikawa is originally from Tokyo, Japan. He has been interested in science since he was a young boy. You can find more information about him and his research at www.uaf.edu/permafrost.

The season has come to an end. Both the girls and the boys won and lost some games. All had a great experience this year and all tried hard. Teamwork and good sportsmanship was evident all season.

Our Christmas program was held Friday night. We also had a mid-term graduation for two of our students, Roger Menadelook III, and Joy Kugzruk. A special guest musician pianist played the ‘kindergarten’ keyboard (we don’t have a piano!) while the students and audience sang. (Michael Rutledge is a teacher from Northwest Campus in Nome). It was a fun-filled evening capped by the local women in the audience singing traditional Christmas carols in Inupiaq.

High school science students recently launched experimental rockets from an area pond. Time of flights and the heights were measured of each. Many elementary students and curious villagers turned out for the winter “fireworks.”

Local villagers brought in a dead Sleeper Shark found on an area beach. Science teacher John Weemes dissected the shark for the school, as he gathered measurements and muscle samples for Fish and Game scientists. He mentioned little is known about these sharks because they spend a lot of time in deep waters.

Students from our school spent a day in Nome, Alaska visiting and exploring businesses, events, and other places the town had to offer for educational experience.

No they weren’t from Mars, but close. 3 real Vikings from Norway were retracing their ancestors’ steps through the Northwest Passage, opened due to Global Warming. They sailed and tried to experience as much of the ‘old ways’ as possible. They spent an afternoon in our school, showing us video of their experience and answering questions. They told our students to reach out and pursue and live their dreams, as they were. You can see more of their trip on www.wildvikings.com.