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Thursday, January 16, 2014 Capital NewsC
KLO Middle School Attitude is everything!
K.L.O. Leadership
By WEB Leaders Nicole and Nathalie Nojszewski The K.L.O. WEB Leaders have always strived to help and support students in their own school, but they also visit some elementary schools as well. Every WEB Leader has the opportunity to attend elementary school assemblies, collaborate to create the assembly activities, and become part of the large group performance component. All leaders take on a role or a responsibility in the assemblies. Some demo activities, some do the set-up, some select participants and some leaders use their public speaking skills if they have a talking role. This past assembly our goal was to introduce and practice some of the 21st century attributes of a learner: collaborator, contributor, innovator, thinker and learner. Every assembly that the Leaders prepare has a theme. This past theme was Australian outback–“you get back what you give”! So, all the activities that the Web Leaders prepared were based on that theme. Some fun examples were: “Sleeping Bag Drag”, “Hungry Crocs” and “Put it in the Pouch”. Willing participants had to work together
(collaborate) and do their part (contribute) for the success of the activity. All of the activities are fun, so that the elementary students can enjoy
rable assemblies. This year, K.L.O. WEB Leaders were given the task of creating Culture Club projects. These are projects that promote
RAISING AWARENESS AND MONEY
for prostate cancer prevention! Way to go Liam, Simon, Jacob, Rachel and Kaitlyn with your Cash for Stache campaign!
them, but they also have a message. Like a boomerang, good intentions and kind acts come back to you – “you get back what you give”. To engage the audience, the assemblies also included an opening and closing dance which was choreographed by the Dance WEB Leaders themselves! All of the assemblies the K.L.O. WEB Leaders have performed have been amazing this year. The elementary students seem to really love them and the elementary school teachers and principal always say that they would like us to come back! And we leaders are enjoying working together to create these creative and memo-
the Web Class Culture by giving back to the school and to the community and by recognizing different people’s efforts to make the school and the community a better place. Their class culture includes the “5 Cs”: contributing, connecting, caring, celebrating and comfort and risk. One recent Culture Club project that was done was “Candy and Cocoa for CAT”. This was a project where four WEB Leaders made hot chocolate and candy canes and cookies to celebrate all the work that the Community Action Team (CAT Leaders) has done so far. The four WEB Leaders also dressed up as Santa and his elves to
make it fun. The Leaders that organized this project were Megan Teare, Jasmine Pathak and Nathalie and Nicole Nojszewski. Several other deserving groups within our school have also been targeted to be recognized or appreciated. Some Culture Club projects also build the whole school spirit. Other than just doing their in-school projects, the K.L.O. WEB Leaders also do a lot of volunteer work inside and outside of the school. It is one way we contribute to the world around us. Sometimes they score keep or run music for community sporting events, sometimes they help run book fairs or elementary sports tournaments. No matter the event, small or large, the importance is to make an impact by doing our part. One recent event where WEB leaders volunteered was at the Arion Therapeutic Farm’s Winter Wonderland. Some Leaders dressed up as elves to help Santa, and some worked crafts with the children. K.L.O.’s WEB leaders are always giving back to the school and to the community and they work to develop themselves as important members of their community.
Community Connection January 2014
K.L.O. January Newsletter By Hailey Lawson, Robyn Solland, and Kensington Renneberg HAILEY: So far this year’s CAT initiatives have been very successful. In October we had our first campaign, which was We Scare Hunger. We beat our goal by a long shot; KLO students, families and teachers donated over 1200 items for the Kelowna Food Bank. We have also had great success with Warm Up Winter with almost 800 items donated. Our December campaigns were a Toy Drive and a Turkey Drive. ROBYN: Our Toy and Turkey Drives were a success this December, thanks to the generosity of our KLO community! The Turkey Drive raised enough money to provide four KLO families with a complete Christmas dinner. As for the Toy Drive, we were able to send almost 40 new toys and nearly 50 gently used toys to the KSS Daycare, the Paediatrics ward at The Kelowna General hospital and Kelowna’s Women’s Shelter to help give kids all over Kelowna a merrier Christmas. KENSI: In November and December CAT Leaders worked on an International Human Rights project. This year, to recognize International Human Rights Day, December 10th, CAT Leaders made presentations to other KLO Students. We received a Plan Profile of a child or teenager in a developing country. Along with writing a letter to our Pen Pal, our task was to create a PowerPoint presentation about how poverty in our selected developing country was related to Human Rights violations. CHRIS HADFIELD with CAT Leaders. This year, my Pen Pal’s name is Zertu Dukamo Hameso, who is from Ethiopia. In my PowerPoint, I got to show students a little bit about Zertu’s country, village, and living conditions, as well as tell them a little about what Human Rights are broken in her country. This is the second year in a row that I have participated in this project, and it has been extremely educational and we have raised lots of awareness about human/children’s rights during both years. In January, we will be focusing on our We Create Change campaign. We will be asking students to donate change to help create change. The change collected in M-Block will be donated through Free the Children, to help support education in a village in Sierra Leone. KLO has supported initiatives to provide clean water, alternative income opportunities and health care in Sierra Leone, for the past four years.
Learning Is Growing At École K.L.O. Middle School By: Mikera Ziolkoski, Avory Tillapaugh & Natasha Mudie. The École K.L.O. Middle School Eco-Club, Eco-Leaders, and Environmental Education classes consist of students who are passionate about the environment and would like to make a difference in the planet. We initiate a number of eco-activities such as building a Butterfly and Insect Garden on school grounds, and trying to restore the wetland, Fascieux Creek, that runs through the school grounds. As well, we are continually working to protect the Western Painted Turtles that nest on our school’s grounds. Mme. Hamilton, one of our teachers at K.L.O. started these classes to educate students about the importance of nature and to make a difference in the world and they have become a large success. The Eco-Leaders and the Environmental Education classes are part of our school curriculum, and the Eco-Club meets every Wednesday in Mme. Hamilton’s room. If you take a walk around our school, you
will find yourself completely surrounded by native plant life in some breath-taking garden plots from entrance to exit! These gardens are surrounding about half the entire school. The first garden you will notice on your way in, our Butterfly and Insect Garden, took many weeks, a lot of work, 2 different classes of Environmental Education students, Mme. Hamilton’s M-block eco-leaders, and the K.L.O. eco club, but it was all worth it in the end. As mentioned before, the garden is made of all native plants, shrubs, and trees, as the others are too. Our garden was approved, started, and finished all this year! We planted all these gardens to
bring back dozens of different endangered species, but our main goal with the butterfly garden is the flying beauty called the Monarch Butterfly. We are also using the gardens for learning purposes, they are the richest and most empowering text book we have ever read from. Subjects we use the gardens for include science, art, math, and English. On top of the academic knowledge we get from these gardens, we also use them for inspiration and the peace and beauty that they bring to the school grounds. It’s hard, here in nature-rich Kelowna, to fathom how the youth of today, my classmates and
myself included, can be so disconnected from the world around us. Without nature in our lives, it’s easy for many kids and adults alike to lose sight of the importance of preserving the Earth’s natural state. Our natural environment plays a huge role in the development of a healthy person, which is why, here at K.L.O., we take the time to incorporate nature into the learning environment of our school. By adding natural elements, such as gardens and native animals, not only are kids like myself able to be more aware of the significance of our natural environment, we also find ourselves instantly more engaged in classes. From nature, we gain a source of inspiration! Learning with nature promotes a healthy lifestyle and can give direct experience for all students studying environmental, scientific and even art topics. There are endless benefits of this natural-based-learning, but the most important of all is that it reconnects youth to the primitive yet complex balance of our Earth that we depend on to live.