Whole school activity stream

[mgelbart]

Hello! Below you will find updates regarding student life at VISST.

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[mgelbart]

Some photos from the first week of school!

New student orientation:

Ice breaker activity:

Tower-building competition:

Assembling furniture:

[mgelbart]

The whole school is starting to get into the routine of the school year. Last week we had our first school lunch where we eat and socialize together with activities organized by students. This week students will be starting their student roles, which are responsibilities students take on throughout the year. Examples include plant caretaker, event planning, and restocking school supplies. This year we are incentivizing the roles with a reward of donuts and/or a movie if the whole school is able to stay on top of their roles consistently. Some clubs have already started, like machine shop and gaming club, and some clubs are still in the process of getting started for the year but should be online soon.

Here is our whole-school photo taken a couple of weeks ago:

VISST is growing!

[mgelbart]

Today we had our first guest speaker of the year: Anmol Jawandha, a machine learning engineer, came to talk about his work at you.com and his journey from childhood in India to now. Once thing I liked was Anmol's emphasis on the importance of reading, which is something we always want to reinforce, since occasionally students get the wrong idea that reading is less important at a STEM school!

This year we tried to tailor the guest speaker invitations more towards careers that students expressed interest in. Our upcoming speakers for October & November are a civil engineer, a social media marketing guru, an architect, and — representing the music industry — an analytics manager from a record label.

Photo of Anmol's talk today:

[mgelbart]

As you may know, every Thursday we host a school meeting where the students and staff collaborate on decision-making and governance. Students also add items to the agenda, share their views, and vote on decisions.

This year we are continuing the initiative of students taking on various roles in the school, such as plant caretaker, social media, event planning, etc. Last year some roles were more thoroughly attended to than others, so this year we're adding a layer of accountability to the roles: if students generally fulfill their duties over the year, we'll all go see a movie together as a reward. We'll be doing an accountability check-in each week at the school meeting. Here are some photos of Shaun leading this check-in earlier today:

We also had our second student-led school lunch today at the park. It was great to get some sunshine, eat together, and play games.

[mgelbart]

Students cleaning up in preparation for this evening's open house - it was a great team effort.

[mgelbart]

Today we hosted guest speaker Bran Helenurm​​​​, Civil Engineer. Brad has worked on many local development projects including leləm̓ Village at UBC. He shared his journey starting with a decade in carpentry and other trades, and then going back to school for a diploma degree and then a university degree. Bran trained and worked in geotechnical and then later civil engineering. He is now at Binnie, consulting for development companies. There are many interesting considerations for large developments that Bran gets to think about, like whether the road system or sewage system can service the increased population density.

The students had lots of great questions today. One highlight for me was a Grade 8 student asking (with some prompting from me) whether Bran uses the math we're learning such as square roots, etc. Of course I was not surprised to hear a "yes" but it's great for the students to directly hear that the foundational learning they're doing now is keeping open a large number of career paths that they may wish to consider in the future.

[mgelbart]

Today's career speaker was Daryl Louie, co-founder of social media agency AntiSocial Media Solutions. Following the sale of his company, Daryl is currently a fractional Chief Marketing Officer for several large brands. It was fascinating to hear how Daryl got started as a server at Cactus Club restaurant. He told us how, when the head office folks walked by to grab a coffee, he would constantly pester them about marketing ideas. Eventually they decided to give him a shot and hired him in the office. It was fun to hear about all the recognizable brands and products that Daryl worked on, and to gain some insight into how these brand-building and marketing campaigns work behind the scenes. For example, when worked on a popular TV show, Daryl's team pre-created all the possible memes they could think of for each episode, and then inserted the relevant ones into the online discourse in response to related comments and posts. We also touched on the dark side of social media use and its addictive nature.

[mgelbart]

Today we enjoyed some time at Granville Loop Park for our school lunch, followed by a school meeting where we discussed the role of devices in our lives, and a device free (ish) week coming up later this month at school. We also made progress on establishing the Philosophy Club and Anime Club, and hopefully reviving the Robotics Club.

[mgelbart]

This week we launched a peer tutoring initiative at school, with peer tutors available a few times a week during lunch, before & after school. Tutors list the subjects they can help with on our shared calendar, and students can drop in to get help. Thank you to our initial tutors Valerie, Keinan and Serene. I hope to build this up into a VISST tradition; I think it's a great opportunity for students to get extra help and for the tutors as well.

[mgelbart]

Some snapshots from lunchtime during device-free (ish) week:

[mgelbart]

Today's career speaker was Emma Kimbell, Director of Analytics at Nettwerk Music Group. The students had requested a speaker from the music industry, so this was a great crossover talk between music and STEM. Emma described her search for a career that built on her interest in math from a young age. She recounted how, at her school people said she could do anything with math, but never quite specified exactly what those things were. Eventually she found her dream job posting, though she almost didn't apply because she only met about 60% of the criteria in the posting. Of course she's glad she did!

When asked what advice she would give to her 14 year old self, Emma would have liked to tell her younger self not to be afraid of failure. Great advice!

[mgelbart]

Today we had our first guest speaker of the semester, technology entrepreneur Ran Kohavi. We got to hear about the various startups Ran was involved with, and all the accompanying stories, including one chance encounter in a parking lot that launched him into the first startup. Perseverance was a theme (19 investors said "no" until the 20th said "yes"), and pivoting was another theme (I realized I didn't want to code for a living, or I realized my company wasn't on the right track). Ran was open and honest about the hard times but overall shared that he loves what he does. His advice to students is to look for areas of change, as these lead to opportunities.

[mgelbart]

Today we had a special visitor, Richard Hoshino, who spent the afternoon with us diving into math and computational thinking. In addition to being a math and computer science educator, Richard is also the author of the mathematical novel The Math Olympian, about a high schooler who strives to attend the International Mathematics Olympiad. I hope some students were inspired to check out the book.

We were up on our feet experimenting with algorithms, and then working at tables on two apparently unrelated problems (graph colouring and scheduling) that turned out to be the same problem. Richard says he had a great time and loved seeing how engaged the students were!

[mgelbart]

Today's guest speaker was Hannah Leyland, architect. Hannah discussed misconceptions about the profession - for example, Hannah only spends about 10% of her time drawing, and much more time on paperwork and communications. Hannah told us how architecture is very multidisciplinary. She herself loves many artistic pursuits including drawing, crafts and pottery. She also talked about how women are underrepresented in the field (about 15%) and her work with Women in Architecture Vancouver.

Hannah brought in many artifacts for students to see, such as drawings, models, and tools. It was great to see many students taking time out of their lunch breaks to spend extra time with Hannah viewing her work and learning more about it.

[mgelbart]

Guy Immega, author of sci-fi novel Super-Earth Mother, spoke with students today about how to choose a premise and other fiction writing tips. We arranged Guy's visit in anticipation of CBC's First Page Student Writing Challenge, which several VISST students plan to enter. Guy has also offered to critique students' drafts between now and the upcoming contest deadline of Feb 29.

[mgelbart]

Today's guest speaker: Dani Ferenc, construction project manager. Dani walked us through the construction process, and we got to hear lots of fun stories from Dani's construction sites along the way. Dani believes construction is still a technologically primitive industry that hasn't changed much in the last 20 years, and challenged the young generation to come in and disrupt the industry. She gave an example of her friend creating the Salus safety app recently, which is now widely adopted in construction.

Fun story of how we got connected with Dani initially: Linda and the students met her on the bus from downtown during a field trip last year.

[mgelbart]

Today's guest speaker, Jessica Wang, shared her journey and experience in the venture capital industry. The themes of her presentation were the benefits of reading books, staying curious, and failing often. Some student questions were about the chances of a startup being funded by her firm, as well as whether her firm takes into account the ethical implications of a startup when deciding to fund it.

Jessica shared her process for vetting startup founders - which gave us some good tips to consider when interviewing teacher candidates. Speaking of which, our next teacher candidate will be in tomorrow, teaching a sample Social Studies class to the Grade 9s and 10s.

[mgelbart]

Yesterday we celebrated Pi Day (3/14) at lunch time. Thanks to Philip and Shaun for providing and procuring all the delicious pies!

[mgelbart]

Photos from today's school lunch at Granville Loop park, enjoying the sunshine and some games organized by the student events committee:

[mgelbart]

Today's guest speaker was Chris Ley from St. John's Vancouver Anglican Church. Chris described his first career in environmental science, writing environmental impact assessments for a gold mining operation, followed by his career change to the church. He spoke about reconciling his two passions for science and Christianity, and how he enjoys the combination of social and solitary aspects of his work. The students had lots of questions! It was a great exercise in sharing different perspectives. The students did a great job engaging with the subject. I know Chris from our high school days; I also took the opportunity to share with the school the joy and meaning I've found in my friendship with Chris despite our different views.

I am interested in bringing in speakers representing other faiths, cultures, and perspectives as well - please let me know if you have someone in mind!

[mgelbart]

Today's guest speakers: Danielle Ghag and Alex Tang, Pharmacists. In the presentation we got to hear about all the different paths within the field of pharmacy beyond what typically comes to mind for most of us, namely mixing/dispensing drugs. For example, pharmacists increasingly deliver vaccinations at clinics, while others may work in industry at drug companies. Danielle works at St. Paul's while Alex teaches pharmacy students at UBC. As we've heard many times in these presentations, we also heard stories of failure, rejection, perseverance, and the idea that life is not just a linear path from A to B.

[mgelbart]

Today's guest speaker was Benjamin Israel, former high school student in Philip Freeman's class and now a criminal prosecutor. There were lots of student questions today, such as:

• Does a judge decide things on their own? What if they're biased?
• How is a jury chosen?
• Do jurors get paid? Why don’t they get paid more?
• Does a prosecutor have a boss/manager?
• Why are judges usually old?

We also heard about how a STEM background has come in useful for Benjamin - for example interpreting evidence involving scientific reports.

[mgelbart]

Today's guest speaker: Phoebe Yu, Director of Health Care Delivery Operations at Telus Health - Project Management Office. Phoebe shared her career story from wanting to study biology, to eventually studying computer science and becoming a web developer, to project manager. We learned about the difference between a project manager vs. product manager, the importance of speaking up in meetings, and the idea that it's OK not to know what one wants to do later on. My favourite part was Phoebe's regular use of spreadsheets in her work, where she emphasized the need to use formulas and link data - a victory for ADST 8!

[solafson]

To recap on Camp Summit, we had a great time! In debriefing with the students at a recent school meeting, feedback suggested that people made friends, tried new things, and generally enjoyed themselves. Students would like to do another trip in the future, and are particularly curious about trying other camps and activities too. Here are some shots from the camp! If you'd like to see more, check out this shared drive.

[mgelbart]

Today we had our youngest guest speaker, Alexa Bailey, a 2nd year university student at McGill and 2022 Loran Scholar. During high school Alexa founded Girls to the Power of Math, a charity staffed by volunteers that runs math activities for Grade 2-4 girls. The program was based on Alexa's Grade 8 science fair project about gender differences in math confidence. This is super impressive work from such a young person. I hope some of our students were inspired!

[solafson]

The gardening club spent time cultivating their plots this year. They first planted some garlic in fall/winter 2024, and this spring have been busy soiling, weeding, and planting herb and vegetable seedlings in their second plot. A big thank you to Kelly Liu for giving the club access to the plots in her garden, Edwin Huras for helping the club with the garlic planting, and to all the members of the club for their hard work. Here are a few photos from the effort!