Imagine a science curriculum that integrates classroom lectures, hands-on experiments, iPads, and special “Science Nights,” all with the guidance of your own instructor from the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. Next, mix in projects that include raising Monarch butterflies, interactive tours of Texas, and live demonstrations of digestive systems, and you have a learning environment perfect for promoting intellectual discovery.

The Perot Museum and the Episcopal School of Dallas have created a learning partnership that allows young scientists to soar to even greater heights. The foundation is simple: partner with teachers to bring the Museum to classrooms, allow students to explore concepts at an experiential level, and develop a deeper understanding of the world of nature and science.

“We want to encourage students’ natural curiosity while making science fun and accessible,” says Marc Horn, the ESD-Perot Museum Coordinator. “Students learn concepts in the classroom, engage in hands-on activities, and expand on those lessons at the Perot Museum.”

Horn, who has worked with the Museum since January, joined the ESD faculty in August. Since then, he has become fully immersed in ESD’s already abounding Lower School science curriculum, working alongside Laura Talbot, ESD’s Lower School science liaison, to foster a variety of hands-on experiments.

“In all the lessons, students take information they already know, ask questions, collect data, and then work together to interpret the data,” Horn explained. “ESD teachers do an exemplary job of fostering a curious state of mind that makes students of all ages eager to learn more.”

This year, the partnership has identified a project at each grade level within the ESD curriculum to further examine. For example, first graders were engaged in raising Monarch butterflies that students hoped to release and track the movement of using a tagging program. Horn and Talbot are facilitating student learning on how to research the appropriate plants and environmental factors necessary to ensure Monarch butterflies’ survival including an updated memorial butterfly garden and Monarch way station.

“ESD classrooms are full of wonderful ideas, as children experiment to build knowledge and test hypotheses,” Talbot said. “Students notice opportunities to frame questions, postulate hypotheses, and create verifiable experiments to test these ideas. Our relationship with the Perot Museum helps support this process by providing additional resources and perspective.”

In October, third graders ate bread and crackers to see first-hand how mechanical and chemical digestion works. Earlier in the year, fourth graders researched and built a series of projects utilizing Edmodo to exchange information between student learning partners that created virtual tours of Texas, including presentations about the weather, geology, and demography of the state.

Three Science Nights will be held on the Lower School campus throughout the school year to provide opportunities to engage in ESD’s science curriculum. The first event on November 7 is for all Pre-El families and will thematically focus on super heroes. Students, ages 3 to 6, will discover the real science of super heroes as they explore energy, forces and motion, smart materials, magnetism, levitation, x-ray vision, lasers, and properties of light. In addition to two Super Hero Science presentations by the Perot Museum, discovery centers will line the Pre-Elementary halls and Perot  Science night activities and exhibits will fill the Dining Commons allowing ESD’s youngest students to measure, analyze, propose hypotheses, predict, design, build, test, model, and imagine within a wide variety of scientific topics.

“Science Night is the perfect opportunity for our community to celebrate a child’s capacity for ‘wonder’ and to deploy them to build, take apart, sort, name, compare in unique ways,” Chelle Wabrek, ESD’s Assistant Head of Lower School, said. “Super powers have long captured the imagination of children all over the world. To examine the scientific magic of inimitability and levitation make us all super heroes.”

The partnership between ESD and the Museum encourages and applauds the innate “scientist” in every student.

“Everything within this partnership is really a team effort based on the teachers’ lesson plans,” Horn, who has completed course requirements toward a Ph.D. in Education from Texas A&M, said. “ESD is an amazing school where we have the opportunity to not only expand on what we’re teaching the students, but then investigate how we can carry them forward. There is always something more that can be done, our job is to find out what else our students can learn in the classroom and at the Museum.”

The benefits of ESD’s partnership with the Perot Museum are expected to be off the chart.

“ESD’s relationship with the Perot Museum is the ultimate gift that keeps on giving,” Wabrek said. “As our Museum Coordinator invests his time in our teachers, they are gaining additional expertise and efficacy to act as scientists themselves. Everyone, from our most seasoned educators to our youngest Beginners, is further developing the mindset of designers and innovators who are eager, like super heroes, to make the world a better place.”

On Friday, October 11, three young women from Palestine and Israel regaled members of the Episcopal School of Dallas freshmen class with stories about perseverance, courage, and respect. Members of Creativity for Peace, an organization dedicated to developing the next generation of female leaders and peacemakers, attend a camp in New Mexico meant to unite Palestinians and Israelis in an effort to diminish any prejudicial attitudes they had about other religions.

Kimberly Rogers, ESD’s Religion Department Chair, organized the visit in hopes of educating students about world peace and how young adults can make a difference on a local or global level.

“The Creativity for Peace visit came at a time when students were studying the key issues of the Palestinian and Israeli conflict in their World Cultures class,” Rogers explained. “I hope students came away with a much better understanding of the emotional and political complexities of the situation, and were inspired by the dedication and friendship of the three women who spoke to us.”

“When I arrived at the camp, it was the first time I got to meet Israelis and Palestinians from Gaza,” Jwana Ghaleb, a 23-year old student from the West Bank of Palestine said. “I learned how to be a better listener and came to see everyone as a human being. Now, I’m more confident to speak my mind and make my voice heard in society.”

Ghaleb, the founder of her own peace organization in Palestine, is speaking to the American Congress in Washington D.C. in January.

“I believe that peace cannot be achieved without justice and equality,” she said. “I also believe that I can change the world by being honest and believing in my dreams.

After Ghaleb’s presentation, students heard from 20-year old Shirit Milikovski, a naval commander in the Israeli military. When asked what her typical day is like back home, Milikovski says she’s wakes up, teaches a few courses in electricity, and then spends her free time working out or socializing with friends. She told the ESD freshmen she also spends a lot of time watching American movies with her friends.

Milikovski and her younger sister grew up in a world of bombings and rocket explosions. Now a leader within Creativity for Peace, Milikovski joined the organization in 2009 to meet a Palestinian face-to-face.

“They’re normal like me,” she said upon meeting the young Palestinian women at camp. “We have the same hobbies, and I can understand and relate to their suffering. The camp taught me that if you have conflict with someone, you should talk about it with them. You’ll be surprised to find they can often relate to you.”

Mai Shbeta, a 22-year old law student from a small village in Israel, grew up with a Jewish mother and Muslim father; she says her dream is to create a bridge between two people and promote peace. She has spoken at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and attended meetings of the Counsel on the Status of Women at the United Nations, hopes to one day become a human rights lawyer in her native land.

“I’ve never understand how you can hate someone you don’t know,” Shbeta asked. “How can someone always see the differences they have with someone, but not the commonalities?”

As the presentation neared an end, one student asked what the three women thought of the U.S. Is it like what they saw in the movies they watch?

“It seems so easy to live here because everything and everyone seems so nice,” Shbeta said, “But we know there is judgment and racism everywhere. It’s our generation’s job to work towards peace.”

The Episcopal School of Dallas is proud to announce the 65 students recognized as 2013 Advanced Placement Scholars by the College Board. In all, ESD scored an 88.3 percent passing rate on all tests taken, compared to the Texas average of 47.7 percent and national 59 percent passing rate.

AP exams are scored on a 1 to 5 scale, with a score of 3 or higher designating passing. More than 92 percent of ESD students taking an AP exam scored a 3 or higher on at least one or more AP exams compared to 51 percent of all Texas AP students. The mean score for all tests taken by ESD students was 3.67, more than one point higher than the state average of 2.56, and nearly a whole point higher than the national average of 2.89. Every ESD student enrolled in an AP class is required to take the exam; ESD students not enrolled in AP courses also have the option to take an exam.

Three students from ESD's Class of 2013 received the National AP Scholar Award and AP Scholar with Distinction, earning an average grade of 4 or higher on a 5-point scale on all AP exams taken, and a score of 4 or higher on at least eight exams. Students qualifying for this honor include Daniel Hull ’13, Wilson Miller ’13, and Matthew Mrozek ’13.

Twenty-six ESD students earned AP Scholar with Distinction for scoring an average grade of 3.5 on all of their exams, and a 3 or higher on five or more exams. These students are: Blake Archer ’13, Arthur Beckel ’13, Kirby Brand ’13, Mitchell Burden ’13, Ines Bustamante ’14, Claire Cahoon ’13, Catherine Duffy ’13, Amanda Eggers ’13, Baron Farmar ’13, Emily Fitzgerald ’13, Anna Hansell ’13, Maya Harris ’13, Daniel Hull ’13, Crawford Kob ’13, Rithi Kotamarti ’13, Austin Magnuson ’13, Wilson Miller ’13, Blake Moore ’13, Matthew Mrozek ’13, David Saustad ’13, Sarah Spellings ’13, William Stargardt ’13, Jonathan Stern ’13, Grace Trammell ’13, Ann Walker ’13, and E Marie Witkin ’13.

Megan Sims ’14 completed five or more AP exams with an average score of 3.5, and scores of 3 or higher on five or more exams, by the end of her junior year, earning her the honor of AP Scholar with Distinction.

Twenty students, including five from the Class of 2014, have received the AP Scholar with Honor Award for scoring a 3.25 average on all of their AP exams. Each of these students earned a score of 3 or higher on four or more exams. These students are: Kathryn Anderson ’13, Alexander Beane ’13, Caroline Brennan ’13, Mary Cole Daulton ’13, Asia Hawkins ’13, Katherine Kob ’13, William Lipscomb’14, Catherine Lovitt ’14, Sydney Narvaez ’13, Carolyn Overbeck ’13, Michael Pappas ’14, Anderson Riddick ’14, Cliff Ritter ’13, Megan Rooney ’14, Megan Sheets ’13, Jory Shive ’13, Ellen Sliva ’13, Alexandra Snyder ’14, Catherine Talbot ’13, and Matthew Wheeler ’13.

Eighteen ESD students from the Classes of 2013 and 2014 received the AP Scholar award for scoring a 3 or higher on three or more AP exams. These students include: Alexandra Aronowitz ’14, Emily Barnes ’14, Ryan Converse ’13, Sara Jane Emmons ’14, Lindsay Gerard ’13, Lauren Griffin ’13, Alexander Gulis ’14, Cyrus Hamid-Khani ’13, Wynne Hobbs ’14, Todd Jensen ’14, Hudson Leiser ’13, Ryan Meier ’13, Vinita Mundluru ’13, Brittany Perry ’13, Sophie Sisson ’14, Leah Smith ’13, Seth Stukalin ’13, and James Walker ’13.

For more information about the College Board Advanced Placement exams, please click here.

Sixteen Upper School students from the Episcopal School of Dallas have been recognized by the National Merit Scholarship Program for their high academic achievements on the PSAT. This year, approximately 16,000 students from the United States were named semifinalists and contenders for the National Merit Scholarships totaling more than $35 million. The Class of 2014 students qualifying for this honor are: Emily Barnes, Alex Gulis, Anderson Riddick, Kelsey Schmitt, Megan Sims, and Sophie Sisson. Approximately 15,000 National Merit Scholarship Finalists will be announced in February.

Gabby Laurendine ’14 was honored as one of 3,100 “Outstanding Participants” in the National Achievement Scholarship Program. Laurendine scored in the top 3 percent of more than 160,000 black students who requested consideration in the 2014 National Achievement Program based on their PSAT scores.

Two students from ESD were recognized by the College Board’s National Hispanic Recognition Program for exceptional academic achievement. Oscar Benavides and Ines Bustamante, both members of the Class of 2014, were among 3,500 Hispanic and Latino high school students from across the nation to receive this prestigious honor. Candidates for this award are often among the 5,000 highest-scoring Hispanic and Latino students on the PSAT.

 A group of seven ESD seniors was also recognized at the ceremony as “Commended Students” in the 2014 National merit Scholarship Program. These students placed among the top 5 percent of the more than 1.5 million students who entered the National Merit Scholarship pool. These students are: Emily Bassel, Caroline Brennan, Shelby Conine, Catherine Lovitt, Erin McWilliams, Megan Rooney, and Alec Smith.