NKES Odyssey of the Mind Team Places 5th at World Competition!

Over the past weekend, May 22-25, the New Kent Elementary School Division I Pet Project Team participated in the World Finals competition at Michigan State University. The team from NKES performed splendidly and took 5th place in the world competition! What a fantastic result for a very deserving group of creative students, along with their coaches and parents!

 The Odyssey of the Mind World Finals featured more than 800 teams from schools around the world. The NKES team placed 5th out of 55 teams in their division! More information about the OotM World Finals is available here and the link to the team scores page is available here .


Great job by all team members and coaches! Special thanks go to NKCPS Gifted Resource Teacher Mrs. Angie Estis who accompanied the team to Michigan!

NKES Division I Pet Projects Team

NKHS Teacher to Conduct Research with NASA

New Kent High School science teacher Sue McIninch was recently accepted as a teacher-researcher in the NASA Long-Term Engagement in Authentic Research with NASA (LEARN) program. Mrs. McIninch was selected from over 500 applicants from across the United States to participate in this research program. As a NASA LEARN researcher, she will have the opportunity to engage in two weeks of research alongside NASA scientists this summer and will continue her research throughout the 2013-2014 school year. Sue will also be able to integrate her research into her instruction at New Kent High School. The partnership culminates in a presentation of research in June, 2014. More information about the NASA LEARN program is available here.

Congratulations, Mrs. McIninch and best of luck with your research!

GWES Students Use Blabberize to Learn About History

Courtney Brown's first grade students at George Watkins Elementary School have been learning about famous Americans, and Ms. Brown found a wonderful technology resource for her students to use.  Ms. Brown used Blabberize, a web-based video creation tool that allowed her students to create a video with simple animations.  Even better, students were able to create voice-overs for the animations to share what they have learned.  Check out the students video below, or on the web: http://blabberize.com/view/id/962990.

Inquiry Learning in Biology

Monica Schnautz and Shelia Morris, science teachers at NKHS, have incorporated authentic scientific inquiry opportunities for students in their classes.  Ms. Schnautz recently shared the strawberry DNA extraction lab that her students performed, with outstanding results.  Below is an image capture of one of Ms. Schnautz's students' DNA samples.  The student was able to capture the image using a smartphone - a great application of mobile technology.  Better yet, this is a fantastic DNA sample, with the double helix clearly visible in the slide!  Great work!

Mrs. Morris' biology students recently complete a field work exercise on local waterways.  Students learned to make field observations and collected samples for water quality testing.  This was a fantastic opportunity for our students - thanks Mrs. Morris!

NKHS Teacher Published!

Congratulations to NKHS math teacher Dr. Candice Barkley, who was recently published!  Dr. Barkley's essay Connected Principals: In Pursuit of Social Capital via Social Media was published in the volume Principal 2.0:  Technology and Educational Leadership, published by Infoage Publishing.  Information about the book is available here.

Great job, Dr. Barkley!