The coronavirus pandemic has offered a silver lining for US Government classes: never before in our students' lifetimes has the response of governments been so impactful on their lives. Elected government officials are determining whether students see each other at school; when and where they can go out; and whether their college classes will begin on time. Particularly for seniors, this has been a difficult time.

• Exams are at 11:00, 1:00, and 3:00 and it is possible to have more than one exam in a single day. 
• On test day you will receive an exam link to your email address
  • You will be expected to login to the exam 30 minutes prior to its start in order to be sure everything is working.
  • You will also be provided a form to report any technical issues should they arise (which then will allow you to test during the June 1-5 make up dates).

Thank you for sharing your feedback on the initial implementation of our Distance Learning Program, and for your patience and flexibility as we make adjustments to our continued program. 

To participate, please click this link.

It’s been hard making everything in life digital in a short amount of time. Though I feel as if my school community has made a great effort to make this transition as easy as possible for students and staff. My aforementioned music meeting helped me understand how classes would look for the time being and given me confidence in the way our teachers are going to help students. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I am thankful to live in a society where online and distance learning is readily available to many students, though it has also made me more appreciative of my ability to go to school every day and interact with the students and staff around me.

Read the full blog here.

Sophomores descend and return from Hell

Students in the Honors World Literature class just finished reading Dante’s Inferno. They were each assigned a canto (chapter) on which to create a class presentation, which included a PowerPoint lecture and an original art project.

The subject of each of the cantos is a particular class of sinner found in Hell in descending circles, where they are awarded unique punishments, depending upon the severity of their particular sin. This hierarchy of sin was not based on Biblical concepst; it was devised by Dante, with a nod to Aristotle. Students were surprised to learn how much our modern concepts of Hell (including movie representations and ideas that made their way into church teachings) actually came from Dante, and not directly from the Bible.

Art projects produced for this assignment were dioramas, painted canvas scenes of various places in hell, doll representations of simoniacs, sinners frozen in rings of cake, and a knitted cap representing the three heads of Lucifer, complete with sinners protruding heads and feet. Much to their classmates’ delight, there were even baked eyeball cupcakes, beautifully decorated cupcakes of scenes of the city of Dis, and decorated cookies of hypocrites.

Hopefully, this experience will prepare students for next year’s Winter Term trip to study Dante in Italy.

Last week the Honors Anatomy and Physiology class dissected sheep brains. This dissection gave students the opportunity to explore brain anatomy and make connections to the functional significance of the structures we have learned about in class.  Students also examined why brain injuries in certain areas of the brain might cause functional and behavioral changes.  In addition, the class made clinical connections regarding impact trauma to the brain and types of hematomas that can result above or below the different layers of the meninges, the protective layers of the brain and spinal cord. 

This week, the study of the nervous system continues as the class uses the block day to explore how addiction works to change the chemistry of the brain. Students are collecting information about types of neurotransmitters in a healthy brain and comparing them with how certain drugs affect synaptic neurotransmission.

In this activity students gained a new appreciation for French cuisine (& Nutella), learned some new food-related vocabulary, and had to adapt to the metric measuring system used throughout the world to ensure the recipe turned out correctly. A special trick for the perfect crêpe was making sure the cast iron skillet was at an even temperature, and that the batter was fluid enough to spread very thinly. After several test runs, we got it down. The results were délicieux!

The St. Michael's robotics team, the Lightsaders, competed in this past weekend's Austin Metro League championship competition at Vandegrift High School. The team did exceptionally well and ended up anchoring the finalist alliance during the tournament finale. 

The Sophomore Honors World Literature class is embarking on a journey through hell, though this is not intended as a commentary on any potential unpleasantness happening in Semester II.  In our annual visit to the world of the Italian Renaissance, students will be immersed in the vision of hell from Dante Alighieri's Inferno, the first of three sections of his epic poem Commedia, where he also envisions Purgatorio and Paradiso.    

As a part of the HALO initiative, St. Michael’s has purchased and is implementing a Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR and AR) system for Winter Term. This VR/ AR “Pop-Up” is available to all classes during Winter Term and has already provided virtual field trips and experiences to places across the world.

Students have been busy learning firsthand what conservation looks like. They visited the Shield Ranch, the Nature Conservancy's Barton Creek Preserve, Hamilton Pool, and Milton Reimer's Ranch Park. Today biologists from the City of Austin's Balcones Canyonlands Preserve visited our classroom and talked about the city's efforts to manage and conserve land for endangered species. Next, we have a private tour of the Westcave Preserve and if the weather holds, we will visit the prairie restoration project at Common's Ford Park on Friday.