High Tech High Chula Vista

High Tech Middle Media Arts

Mind Collisions:
Learning Across Grade Levels
Cara Hetrick | OMG...GPS
Phil Wagner | Virtual Park
Jamie Holmes, Cady Staff, Zoe Randall | OVRP Legacy Project
Angie Guerrero | OVRP Magazine
Valerie Root, Jenny Morris | Party in the Park
HP Innovations in Education
What if we look at learning

beyond age
beyond grade
beyond subject
beyond school

What if we look at learning

as just minds colliding

what would happen...

Description: In this project, students learned about the many different ways that maps and technology influence our
everyday lives. Students looked at different maps, learned how to read a topographic map, learned how Global Positioning
Systems works, studied the geometry behind the technology, and made maps using GPS and ArcView software on HP
laptops.

Academic Content: Topography, Cartography, Triangulation, Navigation, GPS, GIS

Schedule:

Task 1:
Identify and define some typical vocabulary words associated with topography, cartography, and GPS technology.
Be able to use these new vocabulary terms in technical discussions about the remaining tasks for this project.
Task 2:
Identify all of the features of a topographic map, including contour lines, symbols, coloration, etc.
Understand how to use a compass and how to use a compass and a topographic map to navigate.
Task 3:
Teach others how GPS technology works.
Talk about what a waypoint is and factors that increase the accuracy of the point.
Discuss triangulation and the geometry of GPS.
Task 4:
Use Google Earth and ArcGIS software.
Identify different uses for these programs.
Task 5:
Document environmental and physical characteristics at the Otay Valley Regional Park (OVRP) using GPS technology.
Document with GPS technology any interesting biological, political, or cultural areas within the OVRP.
Format each map for consistency, completeness, and visual appeal.

Final Product: A set of maps that will be useful to WiLDCOAST and OVRP as specified by their biggest areas of need.

Challenges: Trying to include all students in all facets of the project, particularly the field work GPS data collection. Also
teaching students a new software.

Teacher Reflection: I liked this project because of the exposure it gave my students to the inner workings of GPS
technology. Students were exposed to GPS data collection units and were then challenged to create maps for the OVRP to
use. Due to the time frame of the project, these maps will have to be updated in the future for the park when they complete all
of their trails. I need to dedicate more time to teaching the students how to use the ArcGIS software in the future and to give
them greater time to “play” with it and the GPS units. In the future, I would have students do some preliminary GPS work on
school grounds before we go out into the field. Then I would give them greater time to work with the software before asking
them to creat final maps.

Mind Collisions: I had a strong connection with GPS professional, Jon Gipson of ASC Scientific, who was retained by
the Trimble organization — the kind donor of our GPS handheld devices. This relationship has grown strong over this last
year, having met a number of times in the field to work together with students. He also came to HTMMA a number of times to
help download, correct, and translate data with our student team. He and I actively worked together to teach the students the
GPS technology. I also connected and collaborated with WildCoast and HTHCV to learn what they needed on the maps in
order to complete their projects and achieve their objectives. Using the HP technology, both my students and I connected with
these groups in order for all of us to achieve our common goals.

Cara Hetrick | OMG...GPS

Phil Wagner| Virtual Park

Description: Students utilized HP Laptops and Blender Rendering Software to create a Virtual
Representation of the Otay Valley Regional Park, in Chula Vista, California.

Academic Content: Environmental Science, Computer Programming, Engineering/Modeling,

Physics/Math

Schedule:
Phase 1: Information Collection
Phase 2: Create terrain
Phase 3: Create flora and fauna.
Phase 4: Integrate bicycle and VR Helmet

Final Product: A fully immersive world where a participant puts on VR Goggles and rides his/
her bicycle through the OVRP.

Challenges: Time constraints, honors project - therefore students were constrained by time and
devotion to the project, cost.

Teacher Reflection: I think this was

worthwhile as it forced the students to
improve their skills when they had been
looking for a challenge. I think with more
time it would have been refined even more.

The HP grant was a good fit for me because

it already aligned with what I was doing in
the classroom and HP was able to support
us. We would not have been able to do this
without HP.
I appreciate that the grant allowed me to
hone and improve my electronic usage in
the classroom.

Mind Collisions: This project took some time to flush out and, at the beginning of the process,
didn’t exist. I really didn’t know what project I was going to do or who I was going to connect
with. I started off thinking of working with Cara on her GPS project but slowly, after speaking with
Katie Westfall and focusing on their needs, I came up with the Virtual Park project. The project
was created with a launch in time for Earth Day, but we were too optimistic in this regard. We
will be showcasing the project at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in October 2010 and
Wildcoast will be using it as part of their future exhibitions at local and county fairs.

Students of various grades came together for this project, sharing ideas and working on different
phases of the project together. It is exciting as an educator to see young minds working together to
solve problems. They have a natural way of collaborating that, if nutured, is unstoppable.
Description: Students visited the Otay Valley Regional Park to learn conservation, gain nature
photography skills, write nature poetry, and create media to help preserve the park.

Academic Content: Media Marketing, Video Production, Cartesian Graphing, Poetry,

Photography, Nature Conservation and Preservation

Schedule:

Week 1: Pre-Production: Research and Acquisition of Photos, Writing exercises, and graphing
principles.
Week 2: Production: Produce rough drafts of project product and communicate with Wildcoast for
approval and feedback.
Week 3: Production and Post-Production: Produce second drafts and perform peer critique tuning
protocol.
Week 4: Post-production: Produce and print/finalize final drafts of work.
Exhibition: Present work to families at exhibition through digital portfolio.

Final Product: Wildcoast Media Marketing Materials, including: PSA, posters, brochures,
photography, T-shirt designs, Interactive Trail Map, web site, and interactive games

Challenges: With so many products to produce it was hard to manage the different production
schedules for each piece. We also had to learn the best way to utilize the technology to enhance
learning and design opportunities. Working remotely in planning the products with Wildcoast and
checking in with our HTHCV partner teachers was really important and we learned the value of
different modes of communication.

Teacher Reflection: In this project, we were able to use the technology to create a meaningful
link to a real-world nature preserve and learn how to balance the outdoor education component with
the media marketing production. In a way, it was a great way to bring nature indoors as students
explored the space in real-time, and found ways of sharing their knowledge through the web and
their own research outside of their personal experience. I learned that students were better able to
connect their learning once they had a chance to visit with students who could mentor them through
their own experiences of going through the process of learning about the conservation issues. They
also connected what they had heard form the student mentors once they had the opportunity to
explore in the field. In the end, I realized that the expansion of the classroom through the use of
technology and opportunities for collaboration enriched the learning and made it more meaningful!
With more voices working to protect one very special and previously unknown park, it came alive
and, through the media marketing, will hopefully gain a whole new audience of explorers ready to
enjoy all that it has to offer!

Mind Collisions: Before the grant, we didn’t have any connections with the teachers at the
HTHCV campus. The grant united us with a common goal to use the HP technology to communicate
the message of conserving and bringing awareness to the Otay Valley Regional Park in helping the
mission of our partner organization, Wildcoast.
This year, we were able to use tablets and learn new software such as DyKnow to help our
instructional practices. We found out the benefits and drawbacks to using the HP Virtual Classroom.
We also emailed, called, and checked the Digital Portfolios of the other HTHCV teachers more than
we ever would have. It also made us more connected to the grant team at our site, being that we not
only collaborated on a project but also helped manage the technology and how we put it in practice.

Jamie Holmes, Cady Staff,

Zoe Randall| OVRP Legacy Project
Angela Guerrero| OVRP Magazine

Description: Student-created magazine of the Otay Valley Regional Park, Chula Vista, CA,
using Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop.

Academic Content: Writing, Photojournalism, Art, Graphic Design, Research, and

Community Service.

Schedule:
Weeks 1-8: Research history of the park.
Weeks 8-12: Compiled and organized magazine components.
Weeks 12-16: Designed layout.
Weeks 16-20: Reviewed, edited, and refined.

Final Product: A 64-page full-color magazine incorporating photo essays, hiking trail guides,
historical essays, service reflections, hiking snack recipes, interviews with students, the Chula
Vista mayor, local business leaders, community members, and teachers.

Challenges: The easy part was researching and compiling the information. The challenge was
that it took longer than expected to decide on the layout and design of the magazine. If I were to
do this again, I would manage the process of design a little better. Initially, all 75 of my students
participated in the project: collecting information, producing art and photo essays, and writing
reflections. Toward the end of the project, only honors students participated in the actual design
and editing. Next year, I will break students up in such a way that all students will participate in
all aspects of the project, in some way, from start to finish.

Teacher Reflection: I thought the magazine was a really great project. I loved that we got
outside of the classroom as often as we did and went to the park and other community events.
I feel like we were able to make a lot of really cool community connections with this project.
We were invited to a tree planting through Wildcoast, the students were invited to an event with
the Chula Vista Mayor, and some students participated in community advisory board meetings.
There were a lot of things happening outside of the classroom.

I also loved the service component. Many students participated in events outside of the
classroom, on the weekends, to perform clean-ups and to conduct their research. Having them
write reflections on their service was very powerful; showcasing the impact that their service had
on them. They felt very valued and that their learning was helping them make real connections.
This really added value to the course itself and to the project. Many students told me that this was
the most important project that they had worked on.

Mind Collisions: Katie Westfall and Valerie Root contacted me to let me know that the
middle school students were visiting HTHCV and that they were doing a similar project. They
wondered if there was a way for the middle school students to connect with the OVRP Magazine
staff.

When they arrived, we broke groups into different sessions: Q&A, overview of the magazine,
the magazine and its components, etc. Middle school students rotated through these sessions.
Our high school students thought the experience was extremely worthwhile and it added
another layer of value and importance to what they did — having them feel that the project was
valued enough that others (especially middle schoolers) wanted to learn from them and their
experiences.
Description: On Saturday April 24th students attended a clean-up Community event in the Otay Valley Regional Park.
Each group of students became experts on a specific ecology topic and exhibited what they have learned in an informative
booth at the clean up.

Academic Content: Ecology Concepts including invasive and native plants, biodiversity, flowering and non-flowering
plants, endangered and threatened species, producers, decomposers, symbiotic relationships, predator and prey
relationships, watersheds, population growth, and the effects of fire on an ecosystem.

Schedule:
Week 1: Preliminary interactive display brsintorming and research
Week 2: Completion of interactive displays
Week 3: Final tuning and Party in the Park

Final Product: Students created interactive and informative booths on various local ecology topics and standards and
presented these booths and games to the volunteer participants at the Clean Up Party in the Park. Each booth was interactive
so that visitors could better understand concepts presented. Additionally, students rotated as tour guides, docents, and clean
up volunteers — leading the public on a tour through the park and doing their part to beautify the park.

Challenges: Time was a definite challenge. We only had a few weeks to complete the project before the previously
scheduled clean up occurred. Also, we found it hard to manage lots of students who were researching many different topics.

Teacher Reflection (Jenny Morris): I thoroughly enjoyed this project. I was grateful to have had the opportunity
to truly collaborate with Valerie, who I would consider both a colleague and a friend. I have always valued her ideas and
teaching methods and I feel I learned a lot about my own teaching style from watching and teaching with her. I did find it a
challenge to find the time to collaborate; we met over Spring Break to get this project planned. Because of the extreme value
I find in collaboration, however, I would gladly put in the time again.

Teacher Reflection (Valerie Root): This project forced me to stretch myself as a teacher and as a manager. I knew
that it was worth the effort and time that we put into it as a team when I saw the high school students thoroughly engaged
with the elementary students. The most fulfilling moment was when I saw a group of students walking a family into the park
to locate the Lemonade Berry bush. The family was inspired by the booth that discussed native plants and their various uses.
The students had collected some berries to mix with water to make a drink that the Native Americans of the area used to
drink. After the family had tried the drink, they wanted to know where the berries came from so they could do it again in the
future. Managing the groups and their research was not as easy, since they each had different topics and roles within the
whole project. My team teacher, Ms. Morris, helped me through this struggle. She modeled organization and check-in styles
that I had never seen or practiced. I grew as a teacher through this collaborative effort.

Mind Collisions: Students on this project felt connected to the content and to the project’s purpose, more so than on
other assignments, mainly due to the service learning nature of the project. We had the students work on a park in their own
backyard and helped them realize that, in order to make a difference in a community, you have to go outside and get your
hands dirty and get as many people as possible involved in what you believe in. Students were able to, not only learn about
environmental concepts in class, they were able to translate their learning to younger students and their families. Seeing the
high school students and elementary students working together was powerful. Katie Westfall from Wildcoast later said that
the Girl Scout troop that participated in the activities that day in the park were the most enthusiastic she had ever seen and
that the Party in the Park was the most successful Wildcoast clean up event they had ever had — due to the connections
made by youth that day.

Valerie Root, Jenny Morris | Party in the Park

 HP Innovations in Education

In 2009. High Tech High, a charter management organization made up of over nine K-12
schools were 1 of 25 recipients to receive the HP Innovations in Education grant for our multi-
grade project Mind Collisions: Learning Across Grade Levels.

The Mind Collisions project teamed over 200 students and eight educators in science, math,
humanities, and multimedia from High Tech Middle Media Arts and High Tech High Chula
Vista to work collaboratively on student projects benefitting the non-profit organization
Wildcoast. Our task — to help develop community awareness about the Otay Valley Regional
Park, a relatively unknown part of south San Diego County, literally nestled between busy
streets and industrial complexes.

We never could have expected the breadth and depth of this project!

The work undertaken by both teachers and students is just the first part of what our team feels
is an evolution toward academic content infused with, not only a service-learning component,
but what we have deemed our “student as teacher” design principle; using technology in ways
that provide meaningful learning experiences, while enhancing the professional aspects of
work products and materials needed by organizations such as Wildcoast.

This was not an easy project! Initially, we questioned what we were doing,
how we would do it, and whether it would be meaningful for our students.
We were focused on developing projects that we hoped would inspire
students to “get out in the world,” learn from each other, and learn how
valuable it is to be of service to others. What we found out during the first
year of this grant is that if you open up a learning space for students to work
in the “real world,” they find inherent meaning in everything they do. They
feel increasingly valued as human beings — able to take what they learn
and teach others through reflection, innovation, and hands-on experience.

We are excited to learn from our struggles and successes this year and build
upon the “student as teacher” philosophy by continuing the collaboration
between our two schools — crafting a social mentoring program that
teams 12th grade and 8th grade students using technology outside of the
classroom.

Through the valuable work this year as part of the HP Innovations in

Education team of schools, we have learned that the “new learner” is
one that is supported by an enriching educational experience grounded
in projects that serve community, has an extensive technological support
structure both at school and at home, and is part of an extended network of
learners that helps reinforce feelings of belonging and connectedness.

On behalf of the students and faculty of our High Tech High schools, we
would like to say thank you HP for giving us this remarkable opportunity
to redefine collaboration between schools, teachers, and students, and for
helping us harness the power of young minds — who continue to inspire and
amaze us with their energy and enthusiasm for learning in the 21st century.
HP Innovations in Education