Arusha Campus News – 3 Sep 2022

Campus was a hive of activity today as teams of ‘pasters’ got to work pasting giant pictures of well known UWC East Africa personalities on the paths around campus. Prepare yourself for Monday morning! The exercise constitutes a visual awareness campaign drawing our attention to the need to speak up for women’s and girls’ rights all around the world.

Much to read about in this week’s newsletter so I shall let you read on…

Have a super weekend

Phil

Some examples of creativity around the Priary School this week.

Creativity is one of my favourite PYP attitudes. This can be expressed in so many different ways and forms, from writing, drawing, maths, art and imaginative play.

The Nursery/EC class have had fun with the sand and water play tables as well as making pictures and playing with their buddies.
The P4/5 class were treated by Captain Manu and Sweety (Baba and Mama Nysha) this week, learning all about Indian culture and cooking tasty treats. Potato Tikkis, Onion Pakodas and Mini Masala Idlis were made and then devoured! They also played the game ‘Polygon or not a polygon’ with the P3 class.

P1 created fantastic pictures of doctors, teachers, firefighters and police people.

The P6’s have made fantastic poems using the stimulus of the book The Journey by Francesca Sanna and read them aloud during sharetime developing expression.

P3 have enjoyed playing rounders, playing bingo and making speech bubbles for superheroes.

P2 have been exploring the ‘I see, I think, I wonder’ routine looking at a variety of artists including Frida Carlo, Henry Matisese and Van Gogh.

So many examples of creativity.

Amanda

This week at buddies P2 and 3 worked together and made shapes and patterns.

A week of many ‘firsts’ in MYP! First week of CCAs, some had their first summative assessments and we also saw the first OP bag check for the M1 class (see photo above)

This is also the first year that all our MYP classes have a weekly Service as Action (SA) lesson taught by Mr Gift, our SA coordinator. Service is a component of all three IB programmes at UWCEA. The SA lessons for example build on the Actions that students undertake as part of their P6 Exhibition and help prepare them for the CAS experiences and projects they will undertake in DP.  In the SA lessons, students are supported to join or initiate service activities and projects in our school or wider community. Key parts of the service learning process focus on how to prepare for and what to consider to make service activities and projects successful and meaningful for all involved.

Anoek

This week the M1 and M2 Design students visited Schwari Restaurant and were treated to a Design lesson with a difference – Design at the pizza oven! Students were tasked with creating a pizza design. If the Management deem the winning design to be worthy of ‘commerical production’ then the new pizza will be added to the menu! Watch this space. 

Many thanks to Miss Maral for having the creative idea to take design into a pizza restaurant and for orgamisng such a fun trip.

Valerie and Era (above) work through their cell theory experiment this week.

D1 Biology class is exploring cell theory and the relationship of surface area to volume ratio through exploration. Using both potatoes and agar cubes, students were measuring the distance of solutions travelled through various sizes of shapes. A great way to learn a complicated concept.

The D2 science class carried out their group 4 project this week which is a requirement of the IB. The students were divided into mixed groups which encompassed someone from each science (Chemistry, Physics, ESS and Biology). In their groups they had to come up with an investigation to bust a myth using science! We had some very innovative ideas and some interesting conclusions. The picture below shows (from left) Ayush, Avinash, Elias, Rosa and Marko presenting their myth buster!

So what is this TOK about???

TOK stands for Theory of Knowledge, a compulsory subject for all our Diploma students. TOK is one of the 3 components of the Diploma Core, which also includes the EE (Extended Essay) and CAS (Creativity, Activity, Service).

Theory of Knowledge gives students the opportunity to reflect on the nature of knowledge, and on how we know what we claim to know. It is a deep critical thinking course which invites students to consider the way we produce knowledge, its relationship with values, how we communicate our beliefs and opinions, and why knowledge develops overtime. The course focuses on 5 areas of knowledge: History, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Human Sciences and the Arts. Students will indeed consider how the nature of knowledge differs in these areas and how key concepts such as truth, objectivity, evidence and certainty, might vary in each one. One of those key concepts, perspective, is an important consideration point in TOK, as it explains how different viewpoints might lead us to different conclusions about the world. In addition, 5 optional themes help students understand perspectives as we consider the relationship between our knowledge and politics, religion and technology, how we use language and finally our relationship with indigenuous societies.

During the first couple of weeks, the D1 were introduced to the TOK course through a variety of activities or games (see image above). In one TOK class, students were asked to walk around the campus and find an object that they drew on a piece of paper. Once back in class, each student had to describe the object to a partner who would draw it as well, by just listening to the instructions, and vice-versa. Each pair was then able to compare their drawings and introduced to the concept of perspective and perception. In another TOK class, students were divided in 3 or 4 groups, and each table received a card game and a set of rules. After studying the rules for 5 min, they were allowed to use only non verbal communication only to play the game. The winner at each table had to move to the next table and play again etc…still in complete silence. Eventually, after some frustration and lack of comprehension, students realized that each table had been given a different set of rules. This game simulates real-life situations (RLS) and students were asked to think of other RLS the game reminded them of.

In the meantime, some of our residential D2s have made a great start to the year by tackling their internal assessments during evening supervised study!

Nathalie

We were so grateful that we were subject to an impromptu visit by students from Lewis and Clark College this week (see picture above). Our students had an opportunity to engage with research students from this prestigious establishment. This will make the presentation about Lewis and Clark College on our campus next week even more meaningful. Asante sana to them for coming to spend some time on our campus, and hopefully (at least) one of our students will have an opportunity to spend more time with Lewis and Clark students on the next stage of their research tour which is the beautiful Tanzanian coast. 

Cassandra

The Environmental Systems & Societies (ESS) course is an interdisciplinary course which is unique in that it contains various sciences, coupled with a societal viewpoint, all intertwined to help you understand the environment and its sustainability.

ESS covers eight major topics: foundations of the course and its major ideas, ecosystem structure and function, biodiversity, water resources, soil systems and food production, atmospheric science, climate change and energy production, and the interaction between human populations and resource use.

Earlier this week, the D2 ESS students got muddy while conducting a fun experiment to observe the different types of soil (see image right) This involved them walking around campus collecting different soil samples, bringing them back to the ESS lab, and testing them using various keys. The students had to get their samples wet in order to observe how differently they behave and properly identify the types of soil.

Miss Jen

Hoops 4 Hope is a charity basketball tournament and a legacy project hosted right here on campus! The tournament runs from the 9th to the 11th of September, 2022. Teams must apply to participate, and donate a minimum of 70,000tsh, though they can donate more at their discretion. The proceeds we collect from the teams and other donors will go to the CWCD (Center for Women and Children Development) in Arusha. This NGO works extremely hard to ‘improve livelihoods of and opportunities for women and children through capacity development, social accountability monitoring, service delivery and networking in Tanzania.

Come watch, eat, play and enjoy!

Hope to see you there!

Hoops 4 Hope team – Andrew Kimani, Elias Friso, Jackline William, Ngure Ndiritu and Yasna Yari.

Last weekend, students from Moshi and Arusha went on their first OP Reefs trip. The beautiful nature of Fish Eagle Point, Tanga, was more than worth the ten hour bus ride and we did a lot of great activities. We went swimming, kayaking, beach cleaning and snorkelling through a mangrove forest. With this trip we got an introduction to water activities, learned more about diving signals and it was great to get to know our Moshi counterparts/co-years. It was a wonderful adventure and we are very excited to continue with Reefs level two in September!

Thank you!

Eva van der Kraats, D1

Monsieur Olivier, Lola, Maddie and Ella having fun on the beach!

The Plaster House is a non-profit organization that treats children who have healable injuries in Arusha. We, as the UWC EA student body, have been volunteering in the Plaster House for 2 years. Since we are heading into a new academic year, we started our fun activities with the kids in The Plaster House last Saturday. After the visit with a group of D1 students, you can see how happy we were to spend time with the kids from the picture below. If you want to become a part of the Plaster House Visits as a Diploma student, please check your emails on Monday for the application form.

We thank D1s for their interest and are looking forward to seeing many more new faces in the Plaster House!

The UWCEA MUN Executive Committee invites youth 15+ to register for Arusha Campus’ first Model United Nations Conference. Please visit: https://forms.gle/9MqtzmYrDD2FmArz8 to register and UWCEA MUN Website for more information.