- Updated: 25 May 2016
- Published: 12 March 2015
- Hits: 6450
“Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a special kingdom located on the 3rd satellite from a star the natives called “Sun.” King Evolution ruled both land and water with an iron fist from the time that life first appeared, about 3.8 billion years ago. Although she allowed and even encouraged for life to try new things, she only allowed certain organisms to survive. Those allowed to survive didn’t necessarily need to be perfect or even supremely adapted to their environment – they just needed to be sufficiently good to appeal to her. They also needed to be able to survive random challenges that she would set them over time....”
So began the “Story of Plants,” which took The Renaissance International School (TRIS) middle school students on a fantastic journey through the evolution of plants. Told in simple, yet accurate, terms, the story illustrated the key steps that contributed to the development of the plants we see today, and provided the students with a framework for understanding plant biology.
After hearing about how prokaryotic cells developed into eukaryotic cells, the students were eager to know more. What are these cells? How do they differ from each other? And so began an exploration of cells that resulted in a series of three cell models: prokaryotic, plant and animal (eukaryotic). The students enjoyed learning the names of the different parts as they researched, chatted and built their models.
Students then had the opportunity to explore why it is that cells didn’t just get bigger and bigger, instead forming multicellular organisms. Through an experiment with agar and a special colorant, the students were able to observe diffusion in agar “cells” of different sizes and to see how the transport of nutrients and waste could be very challenging in a large cell. Best of all, it was a lot of fun!
- Updated: 25 May 2016
- Published: 24 February 2015
- Hits: 5059
Students in our Lower Elementary II Montessori classroom are thankful to Susan Goodell who shared her eperiences about living in Berlin as a child. She helped us cook the following delicious dishes from Germany:
- Grilled Bratwurst with German potato salad
- Asparagus recipe (Gebackener Spargel)
- Apple Strudel
To prepare these recipes, we went shopping for ingredients in our Oakland Dimond District neighborhood.
Susan was kind enough to help us prepare the dishes.
We enjoyed the meal and invited students from other levels to join us. Susan also provided students with a presentation on Germany. The students were curious about the history of the German flag, the origin of Oktoberfest, and Susan even taught us some German. We can now greet each other at the start of the day with: "Guten morgen."
- Updated: 25 May 2016
- Published: 21 February 2015
- Hits: 5621
Walk silently through The Renaissance International School's Cultural curriculum to gain a view of students' work in the classroom.
Join The Renaissance International School’s (TRIS) faculty in ”A Silent Journey,” a unique
“journey” through the Montessori school’s classrooms and experience the
Montessori Cultural Materials, just as the students do on a daily
basis.
The students at The Renaissance International
School learn a great deal through silent observation, which leads to an
increase in their level of interest and curiosity.
'A Silent Journey" attendees will walk silently through the cultural
curriculum in order to get a view of students’ work in the classroom and an
understanding of the depth of the Montessori curriculum across many levels. Following the walk through, faculty will be available for discussion and to answer questions. Attendees are welcome to request a lesson from the teachers, just as the children do in the classroom.
“A Silent Journey” provides a view of students’ work in the classroom and of the depth of the Montessori curriculum across all levels of TRIS’s program. Parents who have participated in “A Silent Journey” say it
is “fascinating, intriguing, mind-opening, helpful, fun and entertaining.”
to register, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or call us at: 510-531-8566.
- Updated: 25 May 2016
- Published: 14 February 2015
- Hits: 5610
In the art studio, our elementary and middle school students are continuing with ceramics projects. They are continuing with technical lessons and the application of glazes for ceramic fish tiles and lidded boxes. Students were asked to use at least 3 colors and layer them according to their knowledge of color theory.
In addition to ceramics, students are also learning about linear/geometric perspective drawing. They were presented with the underlying principles of one-point perspective and the fascinatingly simple rules that help to organize 3 dimensional space and make it seem magically real. We used rulers, pencils and erasers, and drew cities and room interiors. Our vocabulary list included the words: appear, converge, horizon, horizontal, vertical, parallel, diagonal, vanishing point, and plane. Some students were able to add value by using strokes that followed the correct directional planar analysis (vertical vs horizontal vs diagonal).
Read more about our Montessori studio art program.
Learn about the projects our primary (preschool) students work on in the art studio
Students from Oakland, Berkeley, San Leandro, Alameda, and other San Francisco East Bay cities attend The Renaissance International School, located in Oakland’s Dimond District. The school is for Pre-K (age 2 years old) through middle school.
- Updated: 25 May 2016
- Published: 13 January 2015
- Hits: 6672
As the middle school students at The Renaissance International School wrap up their work on biodiversity and renewable energy and start the new year, they had one last treat in store for them: a trip to two different labs at UC Berkeley! We started our day in the laboratory of Professor Potts, where one of the graduate students, Matthew Luskin, spoke to us about his research. Matthew has been working in Indonesia to understand how it is that biodiversity - particularly as related to larger predators - changes at the border between forest and palm oil plantations (as compared with the biodiversity of the pre-existing forest) for conservation purposes.
The students were fascinated to hear how he went about answering this question: he hiked into the forest for weeks at a time, setting up camera traps to record what animals were in the vicinity. Once the cameras were in place, he allowed them to collect data for months so that he could analyze the relative frequency of herbivores and predators. Although Matthew found that there was an increase in a certain species of pig near the edges of the forest, he did not find a corresponding increase in the presence of predators such as tigers.
We then went to visit the Energy Bioscience Institute (EBI), where we were warmly greeted by Shelley Brozenick. Shelley started off by giving us an overview of the work done at EBI, where researchers from different disciplines work together to explore the future in bioenergy.
She explained the focus on creating biofuels using a cellulosic process (breaking down the cellulose in cell walls to sugar in order to form ethanol). This process, although more expensive and complicated that simply using corn to create biofuel, will require less land and can be done with a greater variety of plants, including parts of plants that have no other use at present.
Shelley then led us on a tour of this amazing facility, explaining that much of the layout was determined by consulting the researchers that now worked there.
As a result, the building not only houses the actual laboratories, but also informal community areas (complete with whiteboards) so that researchers working on different things can have greater contact, allowing new connections and solutions to be developed. It was a real treat to see such an amazing laboratory.
