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At École Fox Run School recently, about 150 Grade 8 students and 130 Grade 2 students from C.P. Blakely Elementary School and Beacon Hill School took part in a special science day.
This is the first year Beacon Hill has participated.
The event happens annually and has become a tradition at Fox Run School that students eagerly anticipate.
“It gets us out of class and learning new things,” says Arianna A., a Grade 8 Fox Run student.
“It’s fun for the Grade 2 students to engage in more learning,” says Branson L., a Grade 8 Fox Run student. “I liked giving them a good day, and that we got to do fun and exciting experiments.”
The idea started more than a decade ago with Fox Run teacher Sonia Martinek and C.P. Blakely teachers Tara Ireland and Nicole Wasson.
At that time there were overlaps in the science curriculum in Grade 8 and Grade 2, specifically with mix and flow and states of matter. Martinek came up with the idea of having the Grade 8 students show what they were learning about in science to Grade 2 students, using hands-on experiments.
Although the curriculum has changed over the years, the value of having students in different grades working together has kept the annual tradition going.
“It’s great to see the connection between the older and younger students,” says Ireland.
**With information provided by Chinook's Edge School Division