Grade 9 Electives
School Year 2023/24
Forensic Science - fingerprinting - 2023/24
In the Forensic Science elective class, students have been learning about how to start gathering evidence at a crime scene.
According to criminal investigators, fingerprints follow 3 fundamental principles:
•A fingerprint is an individual characteristic; no two people have been found with the exact same fingerprint pattern.
•A fingerprint pattern will remain unchanged for the life of an individual; however, the print itself may change due to permanent scars and skin diseases.
•Fingerprints have general characteristic ridge patterns that allow them to be systematically identified.
Students took their own fingerprints and then identified the different patterns they could see.
Botanical Garden - Architectural Design - 2023/24
Designing and building a Botanical garden
The students were tasked with creating a botanical garden and building a greenhouse dome that protects and controls the temperature of their gardens. Working in groups, they researched different types of plants they'd like to feature in their botanical gardens. After sketching their plants, they worked together to create a dome out of recycled paper or plastic cups.
As architects, they put their craftsmanship to the test by experimenting with different ways to construct the cups into a dome shape. The dome was then placed on top of their plant sketch, thus completing their model of a botanical garden.
Finally, the students measured the radius of their dome and calculated the surface area, volume, and surface area to volume ratio of their dome.
School Year 2022/23
Forensic Science - fingerprinting - 2022/23
One crucial element of forensic science is fingerprinting. In this class, students learned how to take fingerprints and look for unique patterns in their own prints.
Voice Acting - Final project - 2022/23
For the final project in Voice Acting class, students were asked to work in small groups and prepare a voiceover video for any animation or movie of their choice. Film choices ranged from Mean Girls to Encanto and the Powerpuff girls, which you can see above.
The students worked really hard to record their voices over the videos and their hard work paid off, the videos were excellent!
Forensic Science - Create a crime scene - 2022/23
The final project for the forensic science elective, was for students to create their own crime scene including physical evidence and suspect lists. The students then went to each other's crime scenes to see if they could solve the crime based on the evidence in front of them.
Forensic Science - Solve the crime - 2022/23
Once students had learned the critical parts of forensic science, they did a clue-finding challenge in small groups to establish who had committed the crime. The science lab was set up like a crime scene and students looked at physical evidence such as fingerprints, footprints and the height from which blood had been spilt to solve the crime!
Voice Acting - Animation Voiceover Challenge - 2022/23
In Voice Acting class, students did the Animation Voiceover Challenge. During the class, they got to work in pairs and read a script that represented an animal character. Then students came to the front of the class to read as the elephant, the mouse or the adventure kids!
Social enterprise - Presentations - 2022/23
For the final project in the social enterprise elective, students were asked to create their own social enterprise. They worked in groups to come up with a plan for their social enterprises and those whom they wanted to help. Students created products to generate funds and presented their ideas to their classmates and teachers.