Intensive Learning @ MFS
The World At Your Fingertips
On our last day of Solar Energy IL we assembled all 18 petals of the Solar Parabolic Oven together. It was difficult trying to get the shape of the parabola just right. We then constructed the cradle out of 2×4 boards and positioned the completed parabolic oven into it. We were unable to test...
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After a relaxing morning where we were all able to catch up on some much-needed sleep, we gathered in the dining room for a late breakfast and a writing reflection of the previous day in Munich. The group shared what we learned, and what made us laugh before we took a fun quiz about...
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What a week! Today we celebrated our adventures in the Pine Barrens with pancakes and waffles, deftly cooked by Isaac, Vikram, and Vincent. We then had a viewing party for our Jersey Devil videos – they would have been contenders at Sundance! Finally, we debriefed the week, highlighting our favorite sites while also offering...
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Final day! We all started off the day with a hotel breakfast before leaving for a nice later departure time of 9:00 AM. Before boarding our last coach ride of the trip, we posed for a group picture with the town of Middlesbrough in the background. Once on the coach, we listened to a...
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Halló! Our last day in Iceland was thankfully relatively uneventful. Most of us took the time to check off the last few locations on our sight-seeing bucket list, eat breakfast at one of the many fantastic bakeries in the Reykjavík area, or finish souvenir shopping, but the vast majority of the day was spent...
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Today we began our journey at 8 AM after a breakfast of croissants and whatever we could grab at the convenience store. A quick stop for gas led to a three-hour drive to Haworth, which is in the Yorkshire region of England. Along the way we were introduced to the Brontë sisters and the...
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Today we visited the Museo del Prado, the national musuem of Spain, located in central Madrid. The building was originally constructed to be used as a natural sciences museum and was part of a large scale infrastructure project conceived by Carlos III of Spain. He was considered to be one of the greatest kings...
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Since the bus was leaving at 9:15 am today, we were all glad to be able to finally get a really good night’s sleep. From the bus, we headed to the Basilica of Saint Paul. This Basilica was built outside the walls that once surrounded Rome. We were told by our tour guide, Maria,...
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Thursday was an explosion of color! As people arrived, they selected from a rainbow of embroidery flosses and revisited the childhood craft of making friendship bracelets. How appropriate for an IL centered around simplicity. Then we cleared our work areas and set out blank cotton sheets, because it was time to try out the...
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Today we went to Chinatown in Philadelphia. During the first half of the day we visited Chinese Culture & Arts and learned about the history of instruments and the different types of music that helped shape Chinese culture. Our tour guides gave tutorials on how to play and allowed the class to play traditional...
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Science History Institute The first museum we went to in Philadelphia today was the Science History Institute, which showed a lot of the developments that led to the technology that we have today. It showed how scientific equipment, and things we use in our everyday lives, like lightbulbs and computer chips, evolved over time...
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Today MFS students in Multicultural Philly joined Chinese Culture to experience Chinatown! Our first stop was Chinese Culture & Arts, where we got to experience traditional Chinese folk instruments. We even got to play some of them! It was enlightening to learn about the long history of China’s culture and arts. Next, we got...
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We started the day off by having breakfast at Cubby Hole after the sleepover (which had featured movies, several rounds of hide ‘n seek, and fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies). We then walked back to Van Meter to prepare for the big feast at 12:40 pm. We had to finish cooking and pull the pork...
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Today was a fantastic day in Munich. We started off by visiting the BMW museum, where we saw some of the coolest cars we’ve ever seen. From classic models to modern sports cars to new electric vehicles, the museum had it all. It was a real treat for car enthusiasts like us. After the...
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Today, we used our petal template to make 18 cardboard petals with sides 20 degrees apart and curved to match our parabolic equation. This took all morning without a break so we took a long lunch. After lunch we were visited by the first grade classes to talk about robots and our Solar Energy...
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