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It's My School WCA

Added Jul 15, 2014 •

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in the 1990s a huge Reservoir was created in Diamond Valley near Hemet as the Earth movers Doug they uncovered a treasure Trove from the distant past can a million Bones from such long extinct creatures as the Mastodon the mammoth and the direwolf that astonishing collection is house right here at the Western Science Center when do the same roof with this tremendous Museum and with the Western Center Academy of Public Charter School of the Hemet Unified School District today join us as we look at the Western Center Academy applicants are admitted my lottery and where a school day can be like a night in the museum on it's my school welcome back for another episode of It's my school today we are out at the Western Center Adam a middle school of the Hemet Unified School District and where with mr. Paul Bailey the principal mr. Bailey I would like you to tell me a little bit about the Western Center because we can how long ready that it's different we are definitely different out here it's been an incredible experience were in the middle of our third year of opening and the idea that partnership was to be able to create a charter school that could use the unique resources of the western Science Center located here the Science Center's been open since fall of to sound 2006 and part of that piece was to bring a little bit of science into the valley as part of the dig that happened in the creation of Diamond Valley Lake and so the Western Science Center is a repository to millions of pieces of archaeological and paleontological find said came about part of this incredibly massive project by Metropolitan water district to shorten a little bit there's a lot of Bones here right Kim I don't know can you get that shot we are at a simulated dig which is just one of the really unusual resources that you have for a middle school students to take advantage of right on the side of their school tell me a little about the students who were here how many you got and how you go about you Industry Source for them we have about 380 students on campus right now we camp are grade levels at 128 / grade level on 67th and 8th the stew come into us by Lottery and so we have a variety of students here on campus but they're all here for one thing and that's to get a great education and to learn a little bit more science now you're also running a regular Middle School by curriculum correct absolutely and so we run our four core classes of math science English and social studies in the more Nigeria traditional 55 minute core. And then all of our students take an 84 minute lab science. Everyday we're here now at the western side center with Melanie Thornburg who teaches sixth grade earth science to the kids at the Western Center Academy tell me what it's like for a sixth grader coming from a Elementary School to a place like this end where in and out of the museum as the resources pertain to what we're teaching those lab science is go everything from astronomy the aforementioned archaeology and paleontology all the way through Robotics and videography we have an aquatic biology class now we're here with mr. Greg Fuller who teaches what I teach 7th grade social studies and 8th grade robotics for our school here at the Western Center Academy and I also have four teams that are in our first competition so that is an after school club of robotics I gather by the fact that you have four teams for robotics that you got a pretty high interest among the student body kids come here my lottery I'd suggest to me that you're pretty popular destination is that true we tend to be popular we do have a good waitlist but we take a fresh crop of Strader's every single year we have 128 new sixth graders that come to us and they have to put in an application they have to be willing to do all the hard work it is an honors based curriculum and we do definitely push the kids and try to get them to where they need to be academically so that they can be on a successful track for both high school and for college this would be a major field trip just for a single day to come and look at a place like this and your kids live here what's the difference in the education how is that working out the one of the big pieces is ownership and understanding and so the kids have the ability to be on the campus and to do everything from utilizing the dig site to the expertise of the scientists that are Akira on the campus there's two people acting up on YouTube now we're here with Michelle Soriano who teaches rabbit graders here at the Western Center Academy Michelle tell me what you teach please teach life science honors and field ecology ecology tell me about that ecology is a 9-week class at the students get to study the fauna and the Flora of the wildlife within our 17000 acre Wildlife Preserve that we have on the campus how much time do they spend in the field and how many days a week or two to three days a week weather permitting we got to last year the coyote hunting rabbit holes for 45 minutes and we were able to get within a hundred yards of that coyote 32 kids within a hundred yards and we're just sitting there as a coyote Swan Dive into the rabbit hole you want the kids to go slow and be able to absorb everything that they're seeing you also want them to hear so if you can hear the quail wrestling around we will actually stop sit down on the trail in this world where there seems to be some kind of media playing all the time how did the kids adapt to silence slow and being observant in the outdoors you not stressing me about the to see until we see something spectacular and then I've won them over which the road I think one of the biggest pieces to be able to continue to give opportunities Beyond middle school so one of the goals right now is to be able to facilitate the opening of a high school peace Hemet Unified approved Us in the fall to be able to do that be able to add additional grade levels so that we can have a unique curriculum that continues to meet all the requirements necessary for both UC and Cal State admission but at the same time get these students an opportunity to be able to do some high-level thinking I'm hearing you allude to something that would be the Beau ideal for many pair I'm sure and that is that you are educating students to flow from the Middle School's up through a high school as you in 10 and straight on into the university system's where at stem background is going to be at a premium with the economy that we're growing into absolutely stand as one of the that Science Tech LG engineering math that's one of the conversations with both the community college level in the UC level in the CSU level is that they continue to not have students where they want an academically and part of that is the skill set of being able to think for themselves to be able to work independently and those are some things that we're going to continue to focus on here now we're here with students from the Western Center Academy who's in 7th  tell me about 7th grade  well good privilege because you get to do a lot of pain or active activities in many classes kids like that sort of thing to where it's not just you know the same thing everyday and I like it too because it it it forces kids to have I mean in a good way if forces kids do to learn and get it right and said it so that way they can have a good future you tell me what your experience is like so far this year all three years and it's really fun and I like how the math has a low math class in a higher math class so people that aren't really ready they keep going but the higher kids we can learn at a faster pace and they talk about it like they enjoy it is that true how many people here like algebra so next year you can be in algebra and get a good grade with it everyone here really wants to know how to do it and ask questions and so it's a positive environment is learning so therefore you learn better

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