In our continued effort to make learning engaging for students and to incorporate 21st century skill building, the 7th grade science classes had an opportunity to engage in a hands-on science activity. Students in Ms. Antony’s class dissected sheep eyes. The students found the standards based activity fun and interesting, and it helped them gain confidence in their ability to master complex scientific concepts. Here are some comments from the students.

• What I learned yesterday in science was how to dissect the eye. I saw the optic nerve, the retina, the vitreous humor, the pupil, the iris and the cornea. It was all deformed but very cool. My partner almost fainted.
• The dissection was really fun. I squished the eyeball and all the fluids pumped out. I didn’t like the smell of it. I almost threw up because my eyes were getting watery from the smell. I also didn’t like opening the eye because there was blood that looked like ink, and it kept coming out. I really loved how we got to dissect 3 things his year. I felt really lucky, and I am glad to be in this school.
• I liked dissecting the sheep eye. It was fun and entertaining. I saw the lens and the eye fat. The lens was colorful but pinkish, and the eye fat was thick and white. The eye was hard and black on the inside.
• I like the eye dissection because I really wanted to know what it looked like inside. I also liked it because the eye is a unique part of the body, and this school got to dissect it…very cool.
• Teamwork was part of the dissection, which was very cool. I didn’t like the way the water squirted on my group.
• I saw a lot of interesting parts yesterday. One of them was when we had to cut off the top of the eye. The thing I didn’t like was that it smelled really bad, but besides that it was all awesome and cool.
• I liked searching for all the eye parts. One thing I didn’t like about the dissection was that I didn’t get an eye all for myself.
• One thing I didn’t like of the dissection was when it was over because it was really fun.
• I didn’t like when I had to cut open the eye because gush came out!!!
• It was a very exciting experience and the insides were moist and gooey.
• I learned that we could do anything. The second thing I learned is most kids paid attention to what they’re supposed to do and did the whole project without cheating and on their own.

What do Spoken Word and The Odyssey have in common? They both consist of poetry as an oral art form with the poets and storytellers performing to get their poetry heard. Spoken word has roots in the Harlem Renaissance and blues music, and today it is part of the oral culture movement that has become popular in the African-American community. The staff at King Middle School invited Bryonn Bain, a spoken word artist from New York City, to King Middle School to highlight progress made in the implementation of its new FAMM program. King started the Fun And Motivated Minorities program during the second semester of the 2011/2012 school year. The program is designed to support African American students achieve greater success on standardized tests, improve grades, reduce the number of discipline referrals, and to support the development of student voice and leadership. During student workshops, Bryonn asked students to use literary devices including metaphor, simile, alliteration, and rhyme to write poems describing their goals and the challenges they would face in reaching those goals. Following the workshop, Bryonn Bain performed for the entire student body at an assembly. He was joined on stage by student musicians accompanying him and his beat-box cellist, Cello Joe. Students participated in the assembly by performing swagtastic raps and reading their poems. One student wrote this poem.

Bryonn Bain works as an activist, poet, author, actor, teacher and more. Bryonn developed and taught Lyrics on Lockdown at Columbia, The New School, NYU, LIU-Brooklyn Rikers Island Prison and Boys Town Detention Center. The hip hop/spoken word multimedia show Bryonn created based on his experience of wrongful imprisonment, Lyrics From Lockdown sold out in Asia, Europe and throughout New York City. In addition to the workshops Bryonn conducted at King MS, he also performed and worked with students at Bret Harte MS, Chavez MS, Park Elementary, East Avenue Elementary, and Mt. Eden HS.