Last month, our seventh grade students embarked on an interdisciplinary journey focusing on equity and interdependence. The purpose of interdisciplinary teaching is to develop deep conceptual understanding while centering students and their ongoing development as critical thinkers, creative communicators, and culturally competent members of a community. In doing this, educators collaborate to create learning experiences for students that are inclusive, flexible, and action-oriented while allowing for real-world application and problem-solving. Here's a glimpse of the various topics our students explored:

7A Learning Community
The 7A annual learning exhibition, centered on presenting solutions to this driving question: How might you create an effective product or service club that will bring greater levels of equity to a community impacted by a natural disaster? Guided by SAS elementary school STEM leader Kelli Buxton, students from the 7A learning community used the engineering design process to create prototype solutions for natural disaster relief efforts. In addition, SAS high school service council leadership team, Chloe Hanford, Renee Phan, Erin Chen, and Gaurav Goel acted as mentors for the seventh graders who opted for the service club route, providing guidance and feedback on their service proposals.

7B Learning Community
Students identified a natural disaster that occurred somewhere around the world and then identified the vulnerable communities impacted by that disaster. From there, they explored how can we support vulnerable groups before, during, and after a natural disaster? Students then built models of their chosen natural disaster that showed mitigation strategies that could be implemented to help ensure the impact on vulnerable communities was minimized. Models featured natural disasters like oil spills, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, landslides and bushfires.  

7C Learning Community
There is a growing recognition of the invaluable perspectives offered by young individuals, which have historically been disregarded and undervalued, in driving solutions for achieving greater balance within our planet's systems. During the presentations by the 7C learning community, students showcased a range of proposed improvements to enhance SAS and the world at large. Their insights covered diverse topics, such as equitable dress codes, addressing gender pay gaps in the sports industry, and how to improve equity in student voices in the classroom.