Samueli Academy Science

Junior Year Presentation: Building an Atom This was our first project for our junior year chemistry class, we were expected to work with a group to be able to create a model that would resemble the atom of an element of the periodic table. We had to include a model that would show the number of neutrons, protons, and electrons of the element, we also had to show and create the types of orbitals that the element’s atom would have, for example S-Orbitals that only contain 2 electrons, P-Orbitals that can only hold 6 electrons, D-Orbitals that can only hold 10 electrons, and finally the F-Orbitals that can only hold 14 electrons. It was very important to be able make the model as accurate as we could because that is what we were being graded on, due to this we had to keep in mind the many theories people had about the model of an atom and how it looked like. We also were expected to make this model interactive so that students would be able to learn with hands on expe

Sophomore Year Presentation: Disease Awareness  Here's an example of a pamphlet that a group did on the disease "Leprosy." In this project we were expected to work as a group to create a semi- formal presentation on a disease that we were assigned. In our google slides presentation we had to create either a google slides presentation, prezi, or pamphlet on what our disease was. We also had to describe some of the treatments, the history of our disease, the symptoms, some cases on the disease, the history of it, and how we can project ourselves from the disease. After finding out this information we presented this information to class on our finding of the disease. This project was important because we were learning about diseases and resistant strains and how some 1% of the disease survives after you take medication, and how important it is to kill the whole virus in order to be sure that it doesn’t come back stronger than what it originall

Sophomore Year Presentation: Creating your own superhero In our sophomore year we were learning about genetics in our biology class. In a team of 4 people we had to create a superhero with the knowledge that we had just learned about genetics. We also had to create a story on how that superhero came to be and how she/he got their super powers, meaning how the person got their parents genes and what super powers transferred to the superhero or super villain. For the final part of the project we had to create a tri-fold and do a formal presentation on how our superhero/villain came to be to an authentic audience of biologist.  This project was important because it gave us a better understanding on how genes transferred from the parents to their kids. Another thing that we learned from this project was gene mapping and how kids get certain features from their parents an example being how the kid got their mother’s super speed or their dad’s teleportation power. We also

Sophomore Year Presentation: Community Project Here is an example of a poster that was presented for the community project. During our Sophomore year we had to do this collaboration project we had to find a problem in our community and gather data and analyze that data to which we were going to present to the class in a form of a gallery walk. The topics varied, some of the groups did projects based on music, chemistry, food, cell phone usage. For this presentation we had to first create a survey based on our topic and then we had to gather that data and record it. After that we had to create a trifold and then create an online poster as seen here below and presentation in a form of a gallery walk.  This was important because it made us think critically on some problems in our community. This also gave us a better understanding how to gather information, as seen below we had do various pie graphs and then describe where we found the data and what it meant. Th

Freshmen Year Presentation:  Talk Show For this project our freshman year here at Samueli Academy we were required to work with a group to be able to explain a problem with our planet that is currently occurring. Many of these topics were environmental concerns, for example some of them being air pollution, waste disposal, ozone layer depletion, water pollution, and climate change. We then set up a presentation that would need to last around 10 minutes long but with the format of a talk show. We had to explain to the students what was the problem and what were some of the solutions or alternatives we could have started practicing in order to fix the problem. This was important for us students to learn because people from our generation are going to have to be dealing with the problems which are developing right now, and it is always important to know more about your surroundings and problems that you may be facing when you reach adulthood. Being able to know mor

Freshmen Year Debate: Hetch Hetchy Debate For this debate/presentation we had to gather lots of information about the Hetch Hetchy Dam which is also known as the O'Shaughnessy Dam. This dam impounds the Tuolumne River and it was controversial because the dam was built in the Hetch Hetchy Valley within Yosemite National Park, and obviously national parks are protected and many were upset that this dam was built in an area where nature is protected. This dam was created to be able to provide a steady water supply for the city of San Francisco. Many preservationist believed that the dam should have not been built because it destroys habitats and greatly affects the ecosystem within that area, but the city of San Francisco believed that it was necessary for the health of their city. What we did in our class was start to study about some of the benefits and consequences that could come with constructing and keeping this dam, we also had to keep in mind what would happen if we