Science Fair
Students in science classes (Integrated Science, Biology, Chemistry, Earth and Space Science) had an opportunity to demonstrate their scientific skills at the mini science exhibition. Prior to the final exam, students spent 4-6 weeks on answering a testable question. They either conduct an experiment to address the question or do literature research to find answers. At the science exhibition, the students use their communication skills to share what they have learned in their research project and to ask questions to learn from other students. It was a great way for the students to end the year, feeling proud of what they have accomplished.
Kite Museum
Theory of Knowledge Exhibit
On June 1st, from noon until three-thirty, eighty-one people came to visit the Applied Philosophy and Theory of Knowledge Exhibition in the school library. Our students did a brilliant job of answering philosophical questions by bravely sharing their own life experiences and perspectives. This exhibition was the perfect metaphor for our graduating class: “apart yet together.” With distinct religions, perspectives, personalities, and backgrounds across nine stations in one room, this was a genuine, harmonious artistic and intellectual event. Each of these students rose to the occasion and should be commended for their outstanding work.
Will Hope-Ross
FOLO Farms
RAS students made a second trip to FOLO Farm to volunteer their time and energy. This trip is part of the RAS ACE program. This program is to encourage students to participate in service-learning that contributes to Sustainable Development Goals. The FOLO Farm trip allows students to experience the tasks related to sustainable farming. Students contribute to three main tasks – weeding to prepare beds for planting, planting bunga kantan, and preparing kumquat from organic limes. Upon completion, students are required to reflect on how their experience contributes to the SDGs. The trip was not only about the physical work but also the opportunity to mentor. Some of the students were there for the second time and had taken on the opportunity to guide other students on their tasks.
Fun with Chemistry
The 7th and 8th-grade students are dabbling in some Chemistry for the remainder of the academic year. Thus far we looked at the origins of Chemistry and also looked at how the periodic table fits together. We focussed a bit more on the reactivity series and did some displacement experiments with Copper (ii) Sulphate, Iron, and Magnesium. Moving forward we are now looking at rates of reaction. We are looking at how heat can speed up reactions. The carbon sugar snake experiment is always fun.
Marius Jerling
Biology and Earth & Space
Biology and Earth and Space Science students combine their effort to ask how sunscreen would affect bacterial growth and carbon cycling. They designed an experiment that was deployed in the pond right here on RAS campus. This student team is making great progress taking their classroom learning into application and demonstrating interdisciplinary collaboration in school. Lakes and ponds play a major role in carbon cycling and can affect the climate. Having a pond here on RAS campus allows our students to experience the biodiversity and ecology of the freshwater ecosystem.
Zarraz Lee
Science Experiments
Learning Research Resources
Fine and Performing Arts Showcase
May 13, 2022
The Fine and Performing Arts Showcase was held Friday, May 13th. There were performances from the beginning, concert and jazz bands, dance performances in various styles, and a beautiful collection of work from the secondary art students. Congratulations to everyone involved. It was wonderful to see all the amazingly talented students be able to share their hard work. Great job!
World Geography Field Trip
May 12, 2022
Just down the road from RAS are the Kota Iskandar government buildings. Despite being open to the public, only a few students have ever been inside. We were able to explore a little bit of the grounds this morning, and learned about the significance and meaning of the architecture, from the roofs to the pillars, all the way down to the motifs on the footpath. We were unable to enter the parliament room due to current SOPs, however, students enjoyed the garden and got to smell various flowers and plants and learn about how they can be used to make items such as perfume or medicine. If you’ve never been, it’s a nice place to have a wander around!
Megan Nenke
Fitness and Conditioning
The 9th and 10th grade PE students have been developing the exercises and principles of strength and conditioning for the past two weeks. The students are starting to become more independent by choosing which exercises to use for each major muscle group and what ‘light’ weight to use which still has benefits when the muscle is isolated.
Garth Taylor
Yearbook Orders Due Friday, May 13th
Memories are made to be remembered – order your yearbook today! It is with great excitement, we can announce that the 2021/2022 Yearbook is nearing completion and will be sent off to the printers Friday, May 13th. This year, parents and faculty can purchase a printed copy of the yearbook for 70RM. Parents, please check your email for payment details. The deadline to order is Friday, May 13th
Beach Clean Up – Desaru Beach
Saturday, May 7, 2022
On Saturday a group of 30 volunteer students and teachers went to Desaru to clean up a section of the beach. Students showed resilience even though it was a rainy and stormy day. Students got active and completed this service to support our community goal of having a positive impact on our environment. After the event, students were able to enjoy a wonderful lunch at Tiara Resort. This event was made possible by the hard work and coordination from Alice in grade 9.
Rogelio Garcia
Fine & Performing Arts Showcase: Renaissance
Prom 2022
Prom is here! Enjoy an evening with friends with photobooth, food and music.
Ticket sales May 9-19th, Seniors and Juniors only.
Teacher Appreciation Week
May 4, 2022
In celebration of “Teacher Appreciation Day” our wonderful and carrying parents sent in a feast of food for our RAS teachers to enjoy.
Brad Henry said, “A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning”.
RAS teachers, you embody this quote, and we wish you to have a wonderful week.
Madagascar the Musical
That’s a wrap! We hope you enjoyed our production of Madagascar. Our students did an amazing job on stage, pre-production, backstage, and audiovisual. A huge congratulations to everyone who was involved. to everyone involved in the Secondary School’s musical ‘Madagascar’!
Sungai Melayu Mangrove Tour
April 28, 2022
World Geography and Biology students took their learning outside the classroom walls this morning! We visited Sungai Melayu and enjoyed a boat tour through the mangroves, as well as stepping out onto a mussel farm in the Strait. Students could observe the different plants and animals and see how ecotourism can be used to serve the local community.
Megan Nanke
Inter House Sports Day
April 27, 2022
Visiting Author: Lx
April 27, 2022
Ms. Rita and the World Literature students invited guest poet Lx into our class to talk about her book “Sailing Through Claret.” Lx shared a little bit about the inspiration for her poems, her process of writing, and the culmination of creating a book available to purchase on Amazon US. This was a great opportunity for our class to hear from someone their age and ask some questions, and hopefully, some of our students are inspired to write their own poems with the possibility of becoming published authors.
Megan Nenke
Service Learning at FOLO Farm
April 23, 2022
RAS students volunteered 3 hours of their time to participate in a service learning program hosted by FOLO Farms. Students were first introduced to the purpose and approach of farming and composting carried out by the FOLO Farms community. After learning about the diversity at the farm, RAS students spent 1.5 hrs working on the farm, learning about weeding, proper pruning of mulberry bushes, and planting mulberry trees from tree cuttings. This event is part of the RAS ACE service-learning program, encouraging students to take action toward three Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Funk-Jazz Dance
April 25, 2022
Secondary dance students practiced their funk-jazz routine which involved a lot of grooving, creating symmetrical lines with the body along with lots of isolations.
Vinayak Dasgupta
Earth Day Celebration
April 22, 2022
The entire school came together for a great Earth Day Celebration. There were different activity stations, the focus of each was to reuse, repurpose and reduce as a way to make healthy and smart decisions for our environment. Secondary students worked at each station, helping the elementary students with each activity. Well done, students, on this wonderful project of collaboration!
Chemistry Labs Testing
April 19, 2022
Students took to the Chemistry Lab Tuesday, testing different solutions by using indicators, ph papers, and ph meter to differentiate acids and bases, and to determine their
Tirupathi Nidamanuri
Learn to Golf CCA
April 14, 2022
Students in the Golf CCA practiced their swings last week on a beautiful day. Soon they will be hitting the driving range and then perfecting their game at Senibong Golf Course!
BioBlitz Scavenger Hunt
April 13, 2022
It is Earth Week, and to encourage all students to celebrate we participated in a bioblitz activity during house block. Students and teachers explored their environment to reflect on biodiversity and cataloged their findings to sharpen their research and organizational skills. The event was an opportunity for teachers and students to get to know the school ecosystem.
College Fair 2022
April 13, 2022
Earth and Space Science
April 12, 2022
In school, one of the major wastes made by students and teachers is paper. Paper is used for taking notes, announcements, posters, exchanging ideas and taking tests. Earth and Space Science students are making an effort to prevent some of these paper wastes from going to the landfill by making recycled paper. They will also be teaching our elementary students to make recycled paper and showing them what we can do with the recycled paper!
Zarraz Lee
Grade 10 PE Basketball
April 12, 2022
Grade 10 students creating drills and practices to develop their use of the ‘screen’, improving their offensive tactics and strategies in basketball. Fantastic work by team captains Jayden and Michelle. Well done!
Garth Taylor
Grade 9 Science
April 11, 2022
The grade 9 science students are currently studying different types of reactions. In the lab, the students perform 4 different types of chemical reactions, collect qualitative data and practice their laboratory skills.
Christina Boyle
Term 3 High School Award Ceremony
6th April 2022
Congratulations to all the award winners and a big thank you to our student emcees!
Term 3 Middle School Award Ceremony
6th April 2022
Congratulations to all the award winners and a big thank you to our student emcees!
Dance
6th April 2022
Students are practicing their Street Jazz choreography for the upcoming Showcase! They not only learned the basics of partner work but also how to dance with a prop.
Vinayak Dasgupta
Biology
6th April 2022
Behind the Scenes: Madagascar
5th April 2022
Basketball CCA
5th April 2022
Charlie and Rory from Grade 10 took the lead in the CCA for basketball with grades 4 and 5 this afternoon. It was great to see them working with and coaching the students, imparting their knowledge from PE sessions with Mr. Garth. Lots of smiles and confidence building all around!”
11th and 12th Grade Sport & Exercise Science
1st April 2022
Band Practice
30th March 2022
Our musically inclined secondary students will be practicing diligently over the next couple of months as they prepare for upcoming events and end-of-year concerts!
Joseph Kim
House Block
30th March 2022
This week in house block the StuCo house block planning committee took the wheel and planned a fun stations event to help students get active, use their GLOs, and build connections with peers. The three stations they planned encouraged students to be creative in slowly collaborating on a group mural for their house, communicate with others and use their problem-solving skills to complete three minute-to-win-it physical challenges, and use some quick thinking and research skills to build a paper airplane and test the distance it could fly. The students involved in planning this event have developed as leaders and have learned valuable skills that will serve them well in the future.
Rogelio Garcia
Chemistry
29th March 2022
Chemistry students are learning about chemical kinetics. They conducted an experiment to show the effect of concentration on the rate of reaction. Students will discover how the speed of a reaction changes by altering or diluting the concentration of one reactant.
Tirupathi Nidamanuri
9th Grade PE
29th March 2022
Grade 9 students created drills to recap the skills used in basketball. Next week, we start looking at the tactics and strategies used to beat our opponents. I am particularly impressed with the leaders for creating these static and dynamic drills!
Garth Taylor
IB Music
29th March 2022
On Friday before spring break, our IB students were able to present the research they’ve been working hard on. Students were all tasked with digging deeper into their prospective instrument family. Students decided on one inquiry they wished to answer and created a solution to that inquiry. They then used recycled and local materials only to approach their project to make it adaptable. Various faculty and classes stopped by and each student explained and demonstrated their research project to their visitors.
Joseph Kim
AP Physics
17th March 2022
AP Physics students revisit Newton’s Second Law by investigating experimentally the relationship between net force, total miss of the system, and the acceleration of the system. They were able to do this with the help of lab apparatus and proved concepts learned in the classroom.
Sok Wee Kho
10th Grade Technology
16th March 2022
GLO GROWTH
All G10 Tech students used interactive and multimedia features of Keynote to create projects that tell a story of a time in their RAS History that made them want to improve in one of our four GLOs. On presentation day, newer students enjoyed hearing fun stories from the ‘olden days’ at RAS. The students did a wonderful job of adjusting to an online version of their presentations during an active morning that required students to apply all four GLOs.
Ken Morrison
Concert Band
15th March 2022
HS concert band students hosted the 5th graders today! In order to get to know the band program for next year the younger students came prepared with questions and were able to talk to the older students about their instruments. The concert band performed a song and each 5th grader got a chance to play or inspect their instrument of choice.
Joe Kim
Inter-House Games: Modified!
9th March 2022
With the Inter-House Sports Afternoon postponed, the staff and students of RAS did not want to allow this to dampen our plans. Therefore a new plan for classroom-based or online activities to take place was put into place. Students in each grade and in each House were asked to complete different practical Handball activities, create a poster to support their team, or create a chant for their team. All had to be videoed and sent to Mr. Roy. As you can see from the photographs, the students had lots of fun and were still able to compete for their houses. What a fantastic job. Well done to all the students for their adaptability and perseverance, and to the staff members too for overcoming the daily changes which we face. The true RAS Raptors spirit!
Garth Taylor
World Geography
9th March 2022
By using different colored M&M’s and jelly beans to represent different races and ethnicities, World Geography students are beginning to understand how states (countries) can be formed based on ethnic divisions (language, religion, culture). We can apply this concept to the breakup of the USSR and connect it back to our lessons earlier this week on the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Students also thought about nationalism and how we show pride in where we come from.
Megan Nenke
World Literature Presentations
9th March 2022
“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” ~The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Students needed to show their understanding of the main concepts from the novel The Alchemist by further exploring the Hero’s Journey, the idea of a Personal Legend, or making personal connections to the story in a project of their choice. It was amazing to see how the book makes everyone think about the present and future in a variety of ways.
Megan Nenke
10th Grade Technology
9th March 2022
All Grade 10 students are working on their GLO Reflection Keynote presentations. They will document their growth in their GLOs through their years at RAS. They are learning how to tell compelling stories without going to Google for images. Each student is using advanced features in Apple Keynote to support them as they relay pivotal points of their education which motivated them to improve in one of their General Learning Outcomes (GLOs).
Ken Morrison
Chemistry
8th March 2022
High school Chemistry students took their formative assessment for term 3. Good luck!
Tirupathi Nidamanuri
Biology
8th March 2022
To wrap up the term, the biology students will apply all the concepts they learn on inheritance and sexual reproduction to breed some pigeons. This activity will help them build conceptual knowledge from the individual units they have learned. Let’s see how many different pigeons can they make from a pair of adult pigeons?
Zarraz Lee
Coding
7th March 2022
Code HS students are excelling in their progress of using the Python programming language. We use the CodeHS platform so that students can find a great combination of both working at their own pace as well as collaborating in team coding. Each Friday, students make tutorial videos to advocate for themselves by showing what they learned that week. These videos are posted on a team website and serve as an excellent resource for current and future students.
Ken Morrison
Dance CCA
7th March 2022
Students were practicing Jazz choreography for a change. They concentrated on style, sharpness, and the right attitude for the choreography.
Vinayak Dasgupta
Sports & Exercise Science
7th March 2022
Garth Taylor
Biology
4th March 2022
It is March Mammal Madness time and the students have just finished the unit on heredity. Heredity is a fundamental concept that leads to increased biodiversity, playing a major role in evolution. The students selected 10 animal combatants from March Mammal Madness and used their thinking skills to determine the relationship between the animals. They start by researching the characteristics of the organisms. The organisms are anglerfish, hagfish, hairy frogfish, scansoriopterygid, leaf slug, lichen, hairy frog, black bear, panda, and therapsid.
Zarraz Lee
AP Biology
4th March 2022
AP Biology students demonstrated their understanding of the DNA replication process using a paper model.
Zarraz Lee
Arts & Crafts CCA
3rd March 2022
In the Arts & Craft CCA, our main goal is to explore our creativity, while engaging in destressing therapy. Students do their arts and craft activity at their own pace and start the new weekly activity once they have completed the previous week’s activity. Students are creating geometric heart paintings, name doodles, and box lanyard keychains.
Syida Mohd Saudi
Swift Coding Club CCA
3rd March 2022
The Swift Coding Club began the CCA season using Apple’s Swift Playgrounds to learn the basics of Swift Playgrounds. They are now going through self-paced challenges to go deeper into Swift programming language as they attempt to build a basic app.
Tirupathi Nidamanuri and Ken Morrison
World Geography
3rd March 2022
World Geography students have been studying the continent of Europe. We took some time to stop and look at world events and the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Students were presented with a variety of news articles, images, videos, and maps and asked to analyze what they see and make connections to concepts we have learned about in class this year, such as migration and population, the European Union, and language and culture. We’re all learning how to be well-informed Global Citizens.
Megan Nenke
7th Grade Biology
2nd March 2022
Continuing with our section on Cells the students were asked to bring in some foods/sweets from home that could be used to construct a cell. They had to consider the type of sweet they brought in and try to match it with either the function of the organelles or what the organelles look like. It was a fun activity to assess their understanding of the different types of cells. The exercise allowed for all four of the GLO’s to be practiced.
Marius Jerling
9th Grade World History
2nd March 2022
Students viewed a historical photo from a war projected on the screen with no context. To get them thinking, they had a few minutes to write down as many questions about the photo as they could think of on their desks with a dry eraser marker.
Jeff Outinen
8th Grade Budgeting
2nd March 2022
7th Grade Brain Break
1st March 2022
Rogelio Garcia
EIP
28th February 2022
EIP students made posters that expressed the different aspects of their assigned Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh.
Todd Bechtold
Biology
24th February 2022
In Biology class, students are learning that cells can split their genetic information in half through the process of meiosis. This is important so that when mommy meets daddy, you can get half of the mommy’s trait and half of daddy’s trait. They are using clay models to animate what happens inside a cell when it splits its genetic content by half. Technology skills can help enhance understanding of biological concepts because our cells are highly dynamic! Can’t wait to see their animations next week.
Zarraz Lee
AP Biology
24th February 2022
8th Grade & EIP PE
23rd February 2022
6th Grade Life Skills
23rd February 2022
As we wrap up our social health unit, students are exploring how to resolve conflicts. To explore how we view these conflicts and have a bit of fun, students played a game where they had to make decisions to work together or against each other. This helped us apply some ideas around trying to work to create win-win situations to better collaborate during a conflict.
Rogelio Garcia
7th Grade Biology
23rd February 2022
Dance
22nd February 2022
Students were learning elements of contemporary dance which will not only increase their flexibility but also inculcate a thorough understanding of both dynamic and smooth movements.
Vinayak Dasgupta
Swim Squad CCA
21st February 2022
The secondary swimmers are back in the pool! It’s wonderful to have some swimmers getting back into swimming after a long absence over the past 2 years. These brothers are doing drills, endurance, and speed training in our Olympic pool every week to build up their fitness level again. We’re all looking forward to our next swim meet.
Karran Kinchington
Algebra 2
21st February 2022
This unit began with me showing students what seemed to be an impossibly hard factoring problem. Now that the unit is complete, students not only know how to do it but are competing in groups to see who can solve it first.
Trent Killian
PE: Olympics!
18th February 2022
AP English Language & Composition
17th February 2022
AP Chemistry
15th February 2022
Students are working hard to solve problems in AP Chemistry.
Tirupathi Nidamanuri
Journal Club CCA
15th February 2022
IB Language Course
15th February 2022
In the IB language course, we explore the topic of Human Ingenuity. For this activity, students had to explain the concept of human ingenuity (as they understand it) and make a connection to science. They also had to research and put together a recommendation on a museum that other students could visit one day. Students were asked to prepare a presentation they could visually present while they were speaking.
Mandy Friedrichs
Psychology
15th February 2022
Divergent thinking, fixation, and perceptual sets are important parts of our cognition unit. To explore these ideas in a more interactive and competitive way, students worked in groups to list as many “uses” as possible for an item pictured. They received points for originality. Each group shared the list which helped students reflect on their own perceptual sets, fixations, and divergent thinking abilities.
Rogelio Garcia
World Literature
11th February 2022
World Lit students are diving deeper into the novel The Alchemist by taking on different roles in Literature Circles. Students chose a role, such as a cartographer, maestro, or connector, and developed maps, music, images, and connections from their life to the novel. This helps take understanding past the surface comprehension level, but into the themes and concepts and allows students to hear their classmates’ thoughts and ideas about the novel.
Megan Nenke
Book Character Dress-up Day
11th February 2022
Students and teachers celebrated Literacy Week, and earned house points, by dressing up as characters from their favorite books!
8th Grade Coding
10th February 2022
Grade 8 coding students are improving their Python coding skills each day in MS Coding class. Collaboration is highly encouraged and students are holding back the temptation to just fix each others’ coding bugs. Students have a dashboard which they update each class to share their current progress and tips for others. When they get stuck, they look at the dashboard to see who is working on a similar challenge. They end each week by making an explainer video to demonstrate some of their new skills for the week. These videos are shared with classmates via our team website.
Ken Morrison
Spring Festival
9th February 2022
The World Language Department hosted a Spring Festival this week. It allowed faculty and students to taste Chinese traditional Spring Festival delicacies, such as fried rice cakes, dumplings, glutinous rice balls, candied haws, and so on.
They also brought the colorful yee sang tradition, the MAndarin teachers led the Lucky sentence faculty, including the senior leadership team, tossed the yeo sang dish using chopsticks. Language without culture is boring. Jack Ma once said: “To learn a language, you must understand the culture. ” Happy New Year!
May Lee
10th Grade Technology
10th February 2022
When you really want the online students to hear the podcast you created! A grade 10 student improvises by using her phone during a class presentation to ensure that her online peers can hear her podcast about preventing online bullying. Grade 10 Technology students have been creating multiple projects surrounding personal response plans in case they encounter online bullying. These also include non-digital wellness strategies. International “Safer Internet Day” was this Tuesday so students created podcasts, Apple Keynote multimedia projects, and websites in hopes of sharing them with peers. Another student created his own music in Apple GarageBand to accompany his voice for his podcast.
Ken Morrison
Dance
10th February 2022
Students are warming up before they take on the Hip-Hop Downrock combinations along with the choreography. Warming up before these kinds of dance forms is a must because of the complex movements which might lead to injuries if not done right.
Vinayak Dasgupta
World Geography
10th February 2022
World Geography students are synthesizing their learning about our unit on Culture by creating concept maps. Students have learned various concepts such as cultural landscape and acculturation, and have applied these to various examples at school, in Malaysia, in Korea, and in their hometowns. Understanding these concepts helps us to look around our surroundings from a geographer’s point of view and to analyze what we see and help make sense of our surroundings.
Megan Nenke
6th Grade Life Skills
9th February 2022
During our conflict resolution unit, I and another student played tic-tac-toe to open up today’s class. However, I pretended to be very upset after losing the game. This was an opportunity for us to think about how we communicate our feelings and how we respond to conflict in passive, assertive, or aggressive ways. It was a lot of fun hearing students discuss how they respond to conflict in their lives when it arises. This served as a segue into a five-step model that can help us deal with conflict to find resolutions.
Rogelio Garcia
AP Literature
9th February 2022
For Literacy Week, AP Lit students took some time out from their usual classwork to go back to the foundations of where their love of reading comes from. Each student went to the library and chose a picture book they would like to share with the class. They all took turns reading out loud and we enjoyed a break from analyzing high-level literature for part of a lesson!
Megan Nenke
Psychology Conceptual Understanding
8th February 2022
To open our cognitive psychology unit, students worked together to categorize a variety of pictures. They were asked to sort them according to the concepts, or abstract ideas, that they thought best. Our groundbreaking (but fun) question that started this task: is a hotdog a sandwich? This ridiculous question allowed us to explore why and how we group items together. We extended this with a picture sorting exercise to help students explore how cognition is driven by logical and natural concepts.
Rogelio Garcia
Psychology Debate
8th February 2022
- Violent behavior in movies, games, and music must be addressed in light of technological advances.
- Punishment is the most effective means to shape the behavior of children.
Art Class
8th February 2022
The EIP Art class is exploring printmaking with Monotypes. Color and physical manipulation of ink make this a tactile and expressive experience.
Terry Swift
Badminton
7th February 2022
9th & 10th-grade students carried out different practices to improve the accuracy and refinement of 3 different serves for badminton singles.
Garth Taylor
Reading & Comprehension III
4th February 2022
The Reading & Comprehension III class is currently in the middle of their Short Story / Poetry Unit and will soon be analyzing song lyrics, using them as a form of poetic expression. Here are some of the lyrics that have sparked the students’ interest.
Megan Fortune
Mandarin Class
28th January 2022
Secondary Mandarin students prepared for the Lunar New Year by creating traditional Chinese New Year crafts. They made Chui Mei (blow blossom tree) and Jianzhi (paper cuttings).
May Lee
Applied Digital Skills
27th January 2022
10th Grade Technology
27th January 2022
10th Grade Technology students have been researching the scope of cyberbullying around the world and the increase during the pandemic. More importantly, students created individual response plans in case they ever get bullied in the future. We are now transitioning to creating podcasts, websites, and interactive Keynote multimedia presentations on the topic. Here is an unfinished sample from one of the groups’ websites.
Ken Morrison
Journal Club CCA
26th January 2022
A snippet from Journal Club CCA run by Mr.Machado. He taught the kids how to blend inks to create backgrounds for their journals. The kids had lots of fun exploring different colors and exploring different ways to blend the ink.
10th Grade ELL Analyzing Literature
25th January 2022
Winter Formal
22nd January 2022
The Winter Formal, a student-led event, was held as the first dance since before the pandemic for the 8-12 grade students on a Saturday evening at the black box. The fun, formal event provided a special time for students to reconnect through the many days missed, creating memories through music, dance, photos, and food. The event was successfully planned from start to finish by the Student Council including decorating, Dj-ing, and everything in between. Students enjoyed the night that left many good memories to remember for the coming years.
Mira Mahathir- Student Council President
AP Biology
21st January 2022
AP Biology student Daniel Mella observed a slide preparation of onion roots under the microscope. He demonstrated his understanding of how cells grow and divide by identifying cells that are dividing at different stages.
Zarraz Lee
Secondary School Awards – Term 2 – 2021-22
19th January 2022
AP Chemistry
19th January 2022
AP Chemistry students conducted a Titration experiment. Acid-Base Titration: Finding the unknown volume/concentration of an acid required to neutralize the known volume of a base completely. During the process, their solution will quickly change from bright pink to clear.
Tirupathi Nidamanuri
AP Literature
19th January 2022
Here AP Lit students are scoring previous poetry exam responses. A great way to improve our writing is to look at writing samples from other students and to give feedback using the scoring guide. Students were asked to find the thesis, evidence, and commentary in these writing samples and score them as if they were official scorers for the AP exam. We then compared the scores and feedback they gave to the actual scores these samples received. Students can see what writing scored well and what other responses lacked and now apply it to their own writing.
Megan Nenke
IB Chemistry
19th January 2022
An interesting experiment was done in IB Chemistry to find the speed of reaction when producing a gas. Gas is produced when Metal reacts with Acid. The speed of a reaction of magnesium (metal) with hydrochloric acid is measured by measuring the volume of gas produced in the reaction per unit time.
Tirupathi Nidamanuri
7th Grade Life Skills
18th January 2022
Students reviewed essential vocabulary from all previous units with a game of Pictionary in life skills 7. Starting our new unit in this way gave students an opportunity to make connections with previous concepts and work on our communication skills GLO. It was fun but also allowed for space to reflect on which words they chose for the game and why. Making space for students in this way is one practice to help them connect their learning. After the game, we discussed how communication works and why Pictionary is so difficult. This fun and simple game gave us room to think together on how communication is multi-faceted and dynamic. This is an idea that we will continue to explore as we develop our communication GLO throughout this term.
Rogelio Garcia
6th Grade Basketball
18th January 2022
This term in PE, ES students are developing Large Ball Skills which can be applied to a wide range of games and sports. Basketball challenges and games are part of this Unit and our students have already shown excellent application and endeavor during the first few lessons. Their dribbling, passing, catching, and shooting skills are being practiced along with a focus on teamwork and respect for others.
Andy Manion
MS Coding
14th January 2022
As a primer for coding, students learned advanced features of Keynote which they can apply to user design (UX) in apps or websites. More importantly (this week) students want to out-clever their peers while presenting the interactive guessing games that they created this week.
Ken Morrison
Art 3 & AP Art
13th January 2022
In a mixed class of Art 3 and AP Art, the Art 3 students are working on mixed media projects that use the different mediums to help present their concept and the AP students are working on Sustained Investigations of a theme that becomes a final Portfolio Piece that represents all of the investigations. Both classes are encouraged to demonstrate mastery of medium and technique through careful experimentation.
Terry Swift
Psychology
11th January 2022
This week in psychology students are diving into the world of behavior modification in our learning unit. To help get our heads around some of the larger ideas in this unit, we held a mini-experiment of our own. Students attempted to condition the behavior of their peers by spraying them with a water bottle every time the word “can” was spoken. Disclaimer: no students or teachers were harmed during this experience. All jokes aside, this helped students think about how learning happens in a psychological sense and the limits of conditioning stimuli and responses to shape behavior.
Rogelio Garcia
Geometry
11th January 2022
Geometry students played Kahoot to refresh their memories of everything they learned before winter break.
Trent Killian
10th Grade World Geography
10th January 2022
As a welcome back to class, for the students and myself, we had a bit of fun. The class needed to work together to put 136 pieces of mixed-up paper together to complete the world map. This not only tests our geography knowledge of the world (where is Lima?) but also tests our GLO skills – students need to communicate and work together, use their problem solving and thinking skills, to see the finished map. It was fun to hear the conversations about where students are from, see how they figured out to turn half the map to be the same direction as the other half and talk about where we want to go or where we have been before, and discover places with same names (who knew there was a Sydney in Canada, too)!
Megan Nenke
Biology
17th December
Biology students learned the structure of DNA by building a DNA model using paper. The students learned the intricate formation of the double helix structure that stores our genetic information.
Zarraz Lee
Flood Donations
16th December 2021
The Malaysian Red Crescent Society picked up the donation bags for flood victims yesterday. Led by StuCo, the RAS community collected much-needed hygiene products including toothpaste, shampoos, soaps, and towels. Great work, everyone!
9th Grade Science
13th December 2021
Working in groups with CLP classmates, the 9th graders rotated through different stations. They answered chemistry questions and solved problems together.
Christina Boyle
Earth and Space Science
13th December 2021
Students curated an exhibition of Earth’s geological history with evidence they found to support claims of past geological events. They then evaluated each other’s evidence anonymously to provide feedback.
Zarraz Lee
Mandarin Class
13th December 2021
December 21st is the Chinese festival, Dong Zhi. On this day, Chinese people eat Tang Yuan. All the secondary Mandarin students made their own Tang Yuan, which is glutinous rice boiled in brown sugar ginger soup. The Tang Yuan is in a round shape that symbolizes reunion.
May Lee
10th Grade Biology
13th December 2021
Continuation of the fermentation process shared earlier this week. The biology students successfully fermented ginger but the flavor was not quite what they expected without some soda water.
Zarraz Lee
After 2 days of fermentation:
Before:
8th Grade Science
9th December 2021
8B students are working hard building roller coasters for their STEM challenge project. This project encourages critical math and science thinking, with a focus on team building. After setting up, they place a marble on the top and calculate the average speed of the marble with a timer. This demonstrates how potential and kinetic energy change at different points on the coaster.
Tirupathi Nidamanuri
7th Grade Science
9th December 2021
Science students planned and built their ocean clean-up machines, made information videos and posters, and, finally, presented to potential “billionaire” investors! Great work, 7th graders.
10th Grade Biology
8th December 2021
Biology students have been doing research and collecting recipes for fermented food. Some of these foods were discovered by accident because they turned sour in warm temperatures. Who would have thought keeping food beyond its shelf life could bring in some new discoveries! This week, the students set up a fermentation process to make sour cream, pickled veg, yogurt starter, soy milk yogurt, and ginger beer. Some students who were interested in more complex recipes did product analysis to investigate what happened to the ingredients after fermentation.
Zarraz Lee
7th Grade Life Skills
8th December 2021
During the final two weeks of this semester, grade 7 life skill students will focus on identifying and reflecting on their strengths and weaknesses. As a fun and thought-provoking start, students worked with a partner to throw and catch a small paper ball as many times as possible in one minute. They did this with their dominant and non-dominant. Obviously, their dominant hand is easier and “stronger” but we then discussed and journaled to think about if this makes our non-dominant hand “useless” and how even things that aren’t “strongest” can still be very helpful in our lives. This is just the first step in helping students reflect on their strengths and weaknesses; the ultimate goal is to build plans for identifying and strategizing to improve and progress.
Rogelio Garcia
Coin War!
8th December 2021
As our first official ACE (service-learning project) at RAS, red house students decided to raise money to build care packages for Helping Hands, a local non-profit that works with individuals living below the poverty line in Malaysia. As a fun way to raise money for this honorable cause, they chose to host a coin war between homeroom groups. What is a coin war? Each group has a jar that they want to fill with coins. The group that raises the most money wins! But the twist is that other groups can place paper money into your jar that is subtracted from any coins you have added. A big thank you is due to Mr. Killian, their red house teacher, for sharing and supporting this idea. Grace and Nikki, grade 12 red house students, have been integral to the success and have shown great leadership skills in responding to this need. Thanks to their efforts, the coin war has been a huge success! Over 400 RM has been raised in just two days, with three more days to go. Lots of fun has been had and many sabotages have been calculated, all while meeting a local need in the process!
Rogelio Garcia
8th Grade Life Skills
6th December 2021
Life Skills students have just begun their emotional and mental health unit. They will focus on identifying emotions, self-awareness, and coping skills for dealing with negative emotions in healthy ways. One fun activity to start with was a GIF maker activity to help students develop and share a deep understanding of our essential vocabulary.
Rogelio Garcia
7th Grade Life Skills
6th December 2021
One activity that was interesting for our students in regards to our social health, was to identify what we value and how that impacts the quality and number of our relationships. This type of reflective thinking helps students develop self-awareness.
Rogelio Garcia
Psychology
6th December 2021
6th Grade Life Skills
6th December 2021
Life Skills students have just begun their decision-making skills unit with a focus on identifying personal values. The entry into this inquiry began with students conducting interviews with a variety of teachers and peers to investigate the decisions that people make each day and how they think about them. They will use the D.E.C.I.D.E framework throughout this unit to provide clear guidance for their decisions.
Rogelio Garcia
9th Grade ELA
2nd December 2021
9th grade students have just completed a characterization of Malawian inventor, engineer, and author, William Kamkwamba, from his book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. Here is a great example. Well done, students!
Mandy Friedrichs
8th Grade Life Skills
2nd December 2021
Life skills grade 8 has just embarked on our mental and emotional health unit. One of the first understandings that students are working towards is identifying their own emotions. To do this, they brainstormed as many emotion words as they could think of in groups. Next, we are working towards analyzing these words as related to the 6 universal basic emotions. They’ll do this in groups and sort the words to create some great visuals for our classroom and community! This is the first step in our three-week unit focusing on emotional and mental health.
Rogelio Garcia
11th & 12th Grade PE
2nd December 2021
11th & 12th graders are performing their personally designed fitness program. The students have designed their program to focus on their weaknesses in ‘Skill Related Fitness’ for their chosen sport.
Garth Taylor
9th Grade Volleyball
2nd December 2021
9th-grade students are going back to basics in volleyball; practicing the ‘set’ to send the ball high enough that their teammates have time to get under the ball!
Garth Taylor
Mandarin Class
2nd December 2021
This week we made Chinese Cucumber Salad（凉拌黄瓜). This is a very popular side dish in Chinese food culture and it is easy to prepare. Students cut cucumbers by themselves and dressed salads according to their preference. In addition, I prepared traditional Taiwanese braised pork rice for the students.
Bryan Heng
10th Grade Biology
2nd December 2021
Answer: Ice lemon tea + candy, milk, ice lemon tea
Zarraz Lee
7th Grade Math
30th November 2021
G7 Math was learning ratio and scale, so they had a project to make a scale drawing of their room. First, they had to measure their room and the primary furniture. Then, they had to determine an appropriate scale to use to create a scale drawing of the room. Then they had to do the conversions of the original measurements of the room to determine the scaled measurements for the drawing. Finally, they had to draw the room, cut out scaled furniture and place the furniture 1st in the original room, and 2nd in another room with their preferred layout.
Jeffrey Mills
Dodgeball Tournament & Pep Rally
29th November 2021
Open Mic
29th November 2021
Our StuCo members hosted a great Open Mic event during lunch last week. Students got a chance to share their hidden talents in front of friends and teachers. All performers exemplified being risk-takers and did such an amazing job. The acts included, singing, drumming, jokes, and keyboard. Well done!
7th Grade Science
25th November 2021
Students are using recycled goods to work on the Great Ocean Clean-up project. They are building machines that will pick up plastic trash from bodies of water.
Christina Boyle
EIP
23rd November 2021
After completing several vocabulary exercises, reading multiple passages, and having a group discussion, the EIPS students are tasked with creating a poster of our current class topic. Through the use of their teamwork and communication skills, they will be completing a wordless poster that will easily identify the current topic.
Todd Bechtold
Psychology
22nd November 2021
Psychology students are exploring our sensation and perception unit. This unit has provided us with many real-world investigation opportunities to test our senses. Students have developed a strong understanding of our multimodal sensory perceptions by conducting a variety of experiments. We also used an open-ended assessment process called hexagonal thinking to encourage students to use divergent approaches to show their understanding. It challenges students to move beyond remembering and understanding and shows how they analyze and evaluate the big ideas we have learned about in this unit.
Rogelio Garcia
Life Skills 7
22nd November 2021
Grade 7 students are in their social health unit in life skills class. This unit has been mostly focused on identifying our own values, reflecting on healthy relationships, and critically thinking about how this impacts our social wellness. One way we began to explore this topic was by completing a values tree and reflective writing process to identify what is important to us as individuals.
Rogelio Garcia
Life Skills 6
22nd November 2021
Grade 6 students are learning about their health and wellness unit in life skills class. This unit has provided them with many real-world investigation opportunities to think about their habits and how they impact their overall health and wellness. Students created surveys to gather data and then used that data to create and share posters or videos that they felt can improve the lives of our community members.
Rogelio Garcia
AP English Language & Composition
22nd November 2021
In AP English Language & Composition the students are working hard to find their voices as writers. A huge part of this is finding le mot juste. Here, they choose words to reflect a mystery topic they feel passionately about. Can you guess what they’re talking about?
Megan Fortune
Grade 10 & 11 Biology
18th November 2021
