FUTURA News
Sycolin Creek Elementary
October 2015
Mrs. Schmidt and Mrs. Quiles
The Brain: It’s Amazing!
The students are learning about learning. By now,
your children should have brought home
extensions for a couple of experiments:
Mneumonics and A-mazing. In the Mnuemonics
experiment, students learned the value of this
specific study skill strategy as well as the
importance of data collection. In the A-mazing
activity, the students created tactile mazes to
measure their learning. Other objectives in this
unit include: to learn how as individual humans,
we go about learning; how learning is key to our
survival, what conditions are best for learning;
how our brains change as a result of learning;
and how learning can change your brain no
matter how old you are. Hopefully you have had
or will have an opportunity to do the
experiments with your child and can talk with
them about what you both learned!
GoQuest
The FUTURA program for LCPS has invested in
GoQuest, an Internet-based educational tool
that provides fun, engaging, and meaningful
activities that are tailored to meet your child’s
individual interests and needs. GoQuest screens
websites for educationally sound and childfriendly content. Based on 35 years of
educational research, linked activities and
websites must pass an extensive qualityassurance criteria test before being added to
the GoQuest database. GoQuest has a database
of more than 40,000 enrichment activities.
Students can complete online activities, take a
virtual field trip, read e-books, complete
projects, enter contests and more. Your child
has been registered and may access GoQuest
from any computer with Internet access. In
order to access their accounts, students will
follow these directions:
Username: Student ID
Password: 4 digit birthdate (month and day)
School: futura
The link is http://www.goquest.com/#!/login
Decisions, Decisions…The
Environment
During our recent Decisions, Decisions…The
Environment lesson, students were encouraged
to use their critical thinking skills to argue their
way through a simulation of a fictitious town
facing a terrible problem with pollution. Along
the way the students confronted waste disposal
problems, source reduction and recycling, land
use conflicts, endangered species, the costs of
environmental quality and more. Supported by
four advisors—an environmentalist, an
independent scientist, a campaign manager and
an economist—students assumed the role of
mayor and made important decisions for their
town.