Close to 100 Hartford-area seventh and eighth graders visited Westminster Jan. 21 and April 1 for science and math workshops through a collaboration between the Discovery Center in Hartford and Westminster School. The students participated in diversity and team-building activities, ate lunch and attended workshops in the afternoon led by Westminster faculty members and student volunteers. This is the third year in a row that the collaboration has taken place.
On Jan. 21, the students worked on three different science lab activities in Armour Academic Center.
In a motion detectors and motion graphing activity, they used ultrasonic motion detectors (they work like sonar in a submarine) to track their motion and attempt to match their motion to a graph provided on the computer. The activity promotes stimulating collaborative problem-solving skills and an understanding of graphs.
In a sound waves and beat frequencies activity, they worked with a microphone probe that allowed them to measure the frequency of sound waves generated by tuning forks and electronic keyboards. They also explored the interaction of different frequency sounds to produce musical beats.
And in a pendulums activity, they looked at various factors that influence the time of oscillation of a pendulum. Factors studied included the weight of the pendulum bob, the length of the pendulum string and the size of the oscillation.
On April 1, 95 students attended 18 workshops covering three different math topics: Pythagorean Theorem with math teachers Dan Aber and Tony Griffith, slope with math teachers Jill Loveland and Colin Hartwig; and linear equations with math teachers Peter Ulrich and Nancy Urner-Berry. The students used the computer to simulate a skateboard park, and triangles and squares to demonstrate a classic proof of the Pythagorean Theorem.
“We value our collaboration with the Discovery Center,” said Assistant Headmaster Kathleen Devaney. “Our teachers work hard to make it a great experience for the seventh and eighth graders, and it is great to have so many of our students volunteering to be a part of the collaboration.”
Westminster students who helped with the workshops included Nadia Lee ’18, Mia Stevens ’18, Sally Sandoval ’15, Albert Gao ’18, Mason Horrigan ’18, Hieu Do ’15, Paige Brackett ’16, Austin Pope ’15 Sara Alibrahimi ’16, Ricardo Vazquez’16 and Chris Jones ’16.