Into
the
Wild
Auction
By: Grace Mullen, Camila Hirani and Emma O’Connor On May 7th 2011, Convent of the Sacred Heart is having its Annual auction. This year’s theme is Into the Wild . The 4th grade is auctioning off a book of the girls’ Lower School memories . 1st grade is auctioning off Christmas tree ornaments. Also, if your family is looking for a labradoodle, the Into the Wild auction has one—all the way from Ireland . It will be a very exciting event. There will be a dinner your parents will go to, and the auction will take place at the Hyatt Regency in Greenwich . The silent auction starts at 6:30-7:30 . There will be dancing and a band . Who would ever want to miss a night like that ? Future Problem Solving By Mikhaila Archer Future Problem Solving (FPS) is an after –school activity that starts in 4th grade and ends in 12th. For the Junior division, this activity is held on Thursdays from 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm. We did this activity with Dr. Marr and an upper school student named Sarah Hirshorn. This year our topics were: Healthy Living, Air Transport, and Genetic Testing. We had to come up with problems and solutions for each topic. We compared each problem and solution in the form of a grid. This grid allowed us to assign scores to each solution, allowing us to reach a final answer based on the highest score. On our last topic, Genetic Testing, we had to do a whole packet (solutions, problems, grid, criteria, and final) in just 2 hours! Those packets were handed in to statewide judges to determine the winning group, who would go on to represent the junior division at the final competition held at the University of Connecticut during Spring Break. If your group did not make it to
the final Competition, you could choose to continue with the individual competition . Research was very important, too. We were given a packet containing articles about each topic. We had to read the required articles and take notes on what we read. FPS helped us to make new friends. The junior division is made up of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. FPS gave us a chance to get to know each other better. We all became such close friends; we never wanted to switch teams. FPS was very exciting and fun because of our loving teammates and the challenging topics we discussed. Towards the end of the activity we did a “survey” on who we thought was our favorite teammate . This year the winner, for the whole state of Connecticut, was Ludnie Rene. We are all very proud of her. FPS promotes teamwork. Teamwork was a very important skill in this activity; if you try to do everything yourself, nothing will get done! Dr. Marr was a great teacher, and we all look forward to participating in FPS next year.