The annual H.I.S. Environment Week offers a number of events the whole school community can take part in either at school or at home. See the poster for more information or ask H.I.S. staff members and students.
Monthly Archives: March 2019
Schüler machen Zeitung
Students' newspaper articles published in RNZ
In November and December 2018 the grade 9 & 10 German Language and Literature class took part in “Schüler machen Zeitung”, a project organised by the local Rhein Neckar Zeitung, which entailed daily RNZ subscription and a newspaper article writing competition.
Every student created an article about a topic they decided to be of interest for the readers. Every year, the best articles are chosen and published in the newspaper. This year 23 school classes and 546 students were working towards the same goal.
Finally, on March, the 27th, in a separate “Sonderbeilage” (special edition) of the RNZ, the best 52 student articles were published and we are very proud that 6 articles of H.I.S. students have been chosen. Well done Louis, Carolin, Ishikaa, Laura and Lennard!
And special greetings to Anna in South Africa, who submitted her article in January, although she left H.I.S. end of December, when the project was still in full swing.
text: BK
Easter Egg Hunt at H.I.S.
Would you want to search for delicious chocolate goodies on the playground after school? Guess what! This year, the Easter bunny told us he would come to H.I.S. and hide as many chocolate eggs as he can for you to find!
So grab your bag, buy your ticket and let’s go searching!
It is a German tradition for children to go and hunt for Easter Eggs on the morning of Easter Sunday. The Easter Eggs are usually hidden in the garden by an Easter Bunny to surprise the children in the morning. This is to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Many German non-Christians celebrate Easter as well, just to have fun while colouring boiled eggs or to have fun hiding and finding chocolate goodies!
To add to the happy spring atmosphere, the Habitat Team is organising an Easter Egg Hunt for the H.I.S. community! Students will be able to purchase tickets and participate in a big Easter Egg Hunt after school. All information at a glance:
When? — After school (at 3:20 pm) on Friday, April 5th
Where? — All participants will meet in the main MPR first. Then, all will be able to start the hunt on the playground at the same time. (For this purpose, the playground will be closed from 2:15pm onwards to anyone without a ticket.)
What is the event for? — It is another project aimed to raise money for the Habitat for Humanity group.
How can I participate? — Tickets will be sold for 3 Euros after school in the foyer starting on Friday 29th. Definitely bring your ticket on the day of the hunt and otherwise, you could also bring a bag for collecting of eggs and goodies.
Big thanks to ALDI for supporting the event by kindly providing the chocolate items!
Dear parents: you are welcome to support your younger children in the hunt or simply watch and encourage!
If you have further questions, don’t hesitate to ask any grade 11 Habitat for Humanity member.
See you very soon!
Janne from the Habitat Team
MCP Fair – Sneak Preview
At lunch time, the MYP and Grade 11 student volunteers for the MCP Fair (happening THIS Thursday after school) had an introduction to the resources they will be using at the various booths.
Monika Handwerker from MCP visited over lunchtime to give students some important background information and allowed them to get their hands on some of the mystery equipment. Can you, for example, guess what is being built or done in the pictures below?
We also learned that a Grade 11 student in Mayana would be expected to carry 20 litres of water over a distance of 4 km. While students won’t be experience anything as extreme, they will have the chance to try out water carrying, millet grounding, and head scarf tying as well as other activities.
Punch cards for the fair are on sale after school this week.
We hope to welcome many of you to the fair. It hasn’t been held for a number of years at H.I.S., and it will be a great chance to learn about life in the north of Namibia and MCP’s work there.
text & photos: HP
Tuning-In: Exhibition Week 1 & 2
The feel in the Grade 5 classroom has been one of excitement, nervousness and anticipation!
Since the beginning of the school year, students have had the opportunity to independently explore areas of interest and related issues that could potentially become their topic for Exhibition. The only criteria for the students was, that they to take notes and show how they used their time. By researching and digging deeper into these issues, students were able to identify a passion that has now become their issue for Exhibition.
What will our central ideas be? What will our key concepts and lines of inquiry look like? This is what Grade 5 has been working on the last two weeks, as they tune into their areas of interest for exhibition.
This past two weeks have challenged students to practice thinking, social and communication skills. Grouping students with common issues, they have generated their own units, which have the potential of inspiring well-developed inquiries.
Our central ideas:
- Interacting with each other can affect our health
- Animals have rights and we have a responsibility to keep them
- Media influences individuals and societies
- Through innovation and discovery people learn who they are and about the world around them
- Adversity effects equality in systems
- Our choices and actions have an adverse effect on the environment and the accessibility to essential needs
It has been a fantastic two weeks, filled with deep thinking, excitement and progress!
In weeks 3 and 4, students are “finding out” and “sorting out”. Stay Tuned!
text & photos: FW
Saving The Seas
We are now producing nearly 300 million tons of plastic every year, half of which is for single use.
More than 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans every year.
Everyone should be aware by this point that we humans are slowly, but steadily destroying our planet. We are polluting the air and filling the sea with artificially created products, most of it is plastic.
When plastic was created in 1907, by Leo Hendrik Baekeland nobody could have prophesied that this discovery would be a leading cause for the biggest challenge humanity faces today. The death of our home.
We have two homes when we come to this planet, our earth and our bodies. However, the one-time use of plastic and insufficient recycling of it, is indirectly harming our bodies too! Chemicals in heavily polluted waters can make their way back to us and cause serious health issues like: reproductive problems hormonal difficulties, kidney damage and nervous system damage. Therefore plastic pollution will not only harms the various different living organisms we share out planet with but also out own health, yet we are too lazy to use and reuse it mindfully.
The responsibility of taking care of our planet is not only towards all the other species that we share our planet with but also for the future generations. Every year 100,000 marine creatures die from plastic entanglement and these are only the ones found! Humans are the only species producing plastic! We talk about Zoos and animal testing being wrong, but what about the birds and the fish that we brutally murder without second thought?
You might think the plastic floating around in the oceans has nothing to do with you, because you don’t own factories or throw things into rivers. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t contributing to the problem in some way! Everyone has an influence on the situation and with that influence comes a responsibility to use it for the good. It is always easy to blame governments or companies for our dying planet, but when are you going to do something about it? Even little changes to your lifestyle can make an impact on the planet. If everyone cuts out a ecologically unfriendly habit it will improve the sea bit by bit.
Join out campaign from the 8th-12th April. I will be be awarding ocean themed bake goods at the end of the week as prizes for the people who successfully changed one of their unsustainable habits. These can range from: cutting down on the usage of the plastic bottles, separating and recycling your trash or using re-usable shopping bags. There will also be an art installation on the first floor at the library foyer raising awareness about plastic pollution, check it out if you have time! And remember…You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. You can never achieve anything unless you make sacrifices, sacrifice your usage of plastic to keep our planet alive.
By Ishikaa and Laura
Life Hacks Cooking!
Last week, the Life Hack’s Friday activity group did some cooking.
The preparation for cooking pasta and pizza involved a lot of planning. Firstly, we had to write a shopping list.
We looked up the prices of the foods on Rewe’s website and created a budget.
Then we brainstormed the utensils and materials we would need to cook the food.
After that we divided the jobs so that everyone would be included in the process.
Then we were ready to begin. For many of the students it was a first-time experience. It was great fun and an interesting task. The food was very tasty, but the process was quite challenging. Overall, it was a huge success.
text & photos HP
German Cultural Evening
Wie viele Schlösser gibt es in Deutschland?
Hättest du gedacht, dass es 25.000 Schlösser und Burgen in Deutschland gibt? Welche Universität ist die älteste Universität in Deutschland? Richtig! Die Karl-Ruprecht Universität Heidelberg wurde 1386 gegründet. These and more questions were part of a German Quiz presented at the German Cultural Evening.
A slideshow with German sights informed guests of historical, cultural, architectural and culinary highlights of the host country. Have you spent time at the German seaside? How many countries share a border with Germany? Thanks to the members of the CWG (Cultural Working Group) the evening turned out to be entertaining as well as informative.
A variety of German food and drinks awaited the guests as well as the musicians Claus and Klaus, who played a selection of German and international hits. “Über den Wolken – aijaijaijai – muss die Freiheit wohl grenzenlos sein….”!
Um dem Abend einen würdigen Rahmen zu geben, konnten sich Gäste im Eingangsbereich der H.I.S. vor einem Panoramabild der Heidelberger Neckarwiese fotografieren lassen. The “frame photos” will be available soon for guests to pick up and keep in memory of a fantastic evening.
Many thanks to my fellow CWG members for investing so much effort, Zeit und Herz to make the German Evening a success, ihr seid spitze!
Pi Day
A Tasty Way to Explore Mathematics and Collaboration
On Thursday, Grade 5 students celebrated International Pi Day. After exploring the power of pi in solving problems in the world, students used their knowledge in an attempt to accurately calculate the irrational number. This required students to use necessary measurement and number skills to find which group could get the closest to pi.
And what would International Pie day be without making some…well, pies…the kind you can eat! With a focus on communication and social skills, students organized a plan to bake the perfect pie. Groups that could recite pi to the furthest digit got their first choice. While listening to a mathematically theme pi sound track, students practiced following instructions, solving problems, making group decisions, time management and so much more.
The festivities ended with a pi reciting competition and of course pie. Sophia came in 3rd place, reciting 21 digits of pi. Luna and Jasper tied for 1st place, reciting 36 digits of pi. That is: 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288. WOW!
Learning never tasted so sweet!
text & photos: FW
H.I.S. Human Rights Exhibition 2019
We are very grateful to the Interkulturelles Zentrum for their initiative to include schools in a project to recognise the 70 years that the Declaration of Human Rights has been in existence.
Over the last 2 months, the MYP students have grappled with reasons behind each of the 30 articles, how they are observed and how they are, at times, trampled upon. Following their in-depth consideration of the Declaration across several subjects, the students produced thought-provoking and empowering responses. The resulting poetry, art work, biographical posters and cartoons, were the basis of our Exhibition.
The originality of the pieces of work, reflect the encouraging learning environment created by their inspirational teachers. I believe our future is in safe hands when we see the level of understanding, demonstrated by our MYP students, of the very complex topics raised through studying Human Rights.
text: KM