Welcome to
Summer Notes
The Official e-Newsletter for Virtual Summer Connections 2020! LA ST IS SU E O F SU M
M ER N O TE S 2020!
This issue wraps up of D-E 360° Summer Connections 2020! Look inside to join the celebration!
Wrapping Up ! Summer Connections 2020 This has been some summer - to say the least! Since the start of 2020, we’ve endured a pandemic, racial unrest, and a crisis in the economy. This summer has been a spectacular one with nearly 230 students participating throughout all our virtual programs. Because we’re online, students have tuned in from near and far - from Englewood and Maryland to Italy and Switzerland. There is something very special about our Summer Connections community and the folks who choose to be a part of it.
During Week 6 we looked ahead to what’s to come for 2021. With the postponed Olympics, campers in the Adventures and Discoveries Programs we examined greatness through the lens of sports. Next summer, hopefully, millions of children around the globe will be watching the athletes standing proudly behind their country’s flag encouraging them to think of their own hopes and dreams. You never know who could be the next big athlete - our zoom screens may be pointed at the next Usain Bolt or Kelly Holme. Anything can happen in the future and it’s important to support children in their aspirations and give them the best chances and opportunities.
We had a particularly great Week Five. A special thank you to all our 360° Summer Faculty and staff for making virtual learning both fun and engaging. We celebrated the arts (visual and performing last week in the Adventures and Discoveries Programs. The Immersives revolved around coding, democracy, literature and film as well as environmental stewardship as students took Game Design, Entrepreneurs Academy, Practicing Democracy, Critics Choice: Book vs. Literature and Ocean Explorations. Students taking our most traditional academic classes in math and science ended their five-week run with us. This is certainly a summer for BOLD learners of all ages.
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Student Spotlight Abbey M Abbey is a newcomer to Summer Connections. She joined us for our Virtual program this year during Week 5 for Ocean Exploration. The class began with an ecotour of the Hackensack River with Captain Hugh Carona from the Hackensack Riverkeeper and moved to bigger water ecosystems around the globe. Abbey made the connections between the impact of human activity on land to ecosystems in the ocean. Abbey loves sea turtles and aspires to explore the oceans of the world. Check out Abbey’s final project: Ocean Explorations Human Impact. It looks like we have a real marine biologist in the making. Congratulations on a job well done!
mmer Rewatch and Rewind the Su
2020!
Watch Mr. Pomeroy demonstrating the commitment to sustainability!
Summer Splash Master Class Video - Part 1 Summer Splash Master Class Video - Part 2
Enjoy this Virtual Exploratorium Video!
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Summer 2020 Program Highlights • In a matter of six weeks, we created and pivoted our Summer Connections programs online serving students at EVERY grade level. The provision of weekly supplies to families for Discoveries, Adventures and Art classes was a game changer for participants. In addition, prerecorded “specialty area” classes made learning accessible for children ANYTIME. • For the first time, we offered one-to-one music classes through DE360° Summer Connections. We hope that we can continue to grow in the performing arts area of our programs. • The greatest number of students were registered for the more traditional academic classes, with math and science (Physics) being the most popular. It’s amazing, but our teachers report that they were able to successfully cover 80-90% of the same work online as they would have in person in the five-week offerings. • We pivoted String Society online for its 13th year, which under Annaliesa and Diego’s direction, attracted a stunningly talented group of 11 players, for a MasterClass with Joe Deninzon.
• Summer Connections provided not only tremendous opportunities for students to learn from our summer faculty, but we also built some great relationships with individuals and organizations outside of D-E. Students were treated to a series of programs provided by the Suez Water Company. Researchers from the Ocean One Institute in Colorado visited with our Ocean Explorer students as did the Hackensack RiverKeeper. We were fortunate to have Purple Haze of the Grammy Museum inspire our poets during the Poetry Jam class. And we had an all-time favorite visitor, Lilly Trantacosta of Lilly Pops drop in to visit with our Voyagers to talk about creativity. • We were proud to partner with two outside groups to deliver classes: Vineyard Apps Camp which offered the Entrepreneurs Academy that allowed our students to take their ideas from concept to market in the App Store and FNL Driving School which provided Driver’s Ed Theory. Our students made some outstanding strides in both areas. • We experimented with offering a Civil Rights class that has a domestic travel component to it planned for (hopefully) the summer of 2021.
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We are grateful for so many people’s contributions to SC2020: Dr. De Jarnett & the D-E Administrative Team; the business office; the communications team; the facilities team; the academic tech team as well as all the DE faculty and nurses who shared their advice with the Summer Connections staff/faculty/leadership. In addition, a special shout out to our tremendous Summer Connections leadership and operations teams - Matt, Catherine, Ben, Holly, Chelsey, Lisa, Stacy, Amy, Ann, Diego, Annaliesa, Liz and Trevor - who worked tirelessly over the entire 2019/2020 academic year to prep; our fantastic faculty for all of our programs - Discoveries, Adventures, Immersives, Enrichment, Scholars and Academic Enrichment; our gifted and energetic teaching assistants, and volunteers; and the more than 150 families who entrusted their wonderful children to us. Thank you for joining us this summer on our virtual journey together, and we hope to see you again soon.
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If you’d like to invite family and friends to join you in your Virtual Summer Connections 2020 experience, please share our program information. There are a few seats available in Discoveries, Adventures, Immersives and one-to-one music lessons.