As 2023 began, students returned to DBA to embark on a variety of stimulating learning experiences. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights from our adventures so far this spring semester.
January Jump
The first week back was January Jump, a program featuring interdisciplinary learning courses featuring a themed set of activities. This year, the students selected “From Mickey to Marvel: The World of Disney,” an examination of the significant artistic and commercial influences of the Walt Disney Corporation. Students explored the connections between the history of the company and America in a variety of media. They also learned how to draw animated characters, design a theme park attraction, and analyze a fiscal earnings report. We also hosted a former Cast Member for a presentation on life behind-the-scenes at Disneyland.
Lunar New Year
For our community time programming in late January, we dedicated a week to learning about the Lunar New Year. Pastor Junfeng Tan of Faith Lutheran Church in Bellaire visited our classroom as a guest speaker to share about Spring Festival and his memories of the holiday growing up in rural China. The week culminated with a delicious meal to celebrate the arrival of the Year of the Rabbit!
Souper Bowl of Caring
In early February, our class collected canned and dry food as part of the Souper Bowl of Caring. We accumulated over 85 pounds of food to donate to the food pantry at the Christian Community Service Center. Students also helped the church staff at Faith load all the food brought by the congregation into vehicles for transport to the food pantry.
Field Trips
The class ventured out for two excursions in recent weeks. First, we visited the Morian Hall of Paleontology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Students examined prehistoric fossils as part of our study of structural adaptations in Life Science. In addition, we attended Episcopal High School’s daytime matinee of the musical Mamma Mia!. Our students were extremely impressed by the quality of this high school production!
Go Texan Day BBQ
We enjoyed a fantastic BBQ lunch with family and friends for Go Texan Day. DBA dad Steve Eixman and the great folks at Tetra Land Services brought a cooker trailer to grill us some tasty food. The weather was great, and a good time was had by all in our rodeo outfits.
Academic Highlights
While it is impossible to show all of the amazing learning taking place at DBA, here are a few highlights from the most recent quarter:
animated discussion of Chinua Achebe’s literary MasterPiece Things Fall Apart
“Galapagos Island Finches” fight for “seeds” in Life Science Lab Activity
The Dangers of attacking during WWI Trench Warfare Simulation in Modern World History
La Comida Projects in Spanish
