Back Post-STEAM Fest 2025

 Now that our blog has been reinstated, we would like to take a moment to travel back to February when we celebrated STEAM Fest 2025.

This celebration of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths was a huge success once again.  

We were honoured to share the celebration with many other internal as well as external members of the community, some of who joined us from Highlands, Maquilishuat, and AmunShea schools in addition to special guests from Game Changer and Creativo 3d. We also had quite a few judges join us on the day; some were ABC teachers, and others were external professionals working in the area of STEAM.

67 school teams of up to 6 students each took part on the day but also spent several months in advance researching and developing their projects. Of those teams, 112 ABC secondary school students took part.

Mateo Guzman, from 10th grade, designed a fantastic. official logo for this year's STEAM Fest and was honoured during the event for his work as a graphic artist. 

1st place for the best STEAM Fest project overall was awarded to Julián Betancourt Rivas and Juan Ángel Valiente Castillo for their Landslide Susceptibility project, in which they developed an AI system to analyze different sets of data which could be visualized as a map presenting the susceptibility of land in El Salvador to landslides.

During STEAM Fest 2025, we had the opportunity to run another exciting hackathon in which the Maquilisuat, Highlands and ABC took place. 

The Hackathon was won by ABC Students: Arthur Falkenstein, Howard Tianji, Fabioloa Echeverria and Javier Huezo. They were followed closely by the Maquilisuat in 2nd place and Highlands in 3rd place.  A big well done to all the teams that worked so arduously to solve the problem that was presented in the given time. 

While all the thank yous went out in February when the event took place, the STEAM Team would again like to thank all involved, including the LRC, Design, Science and Maintenance teams for all the hard work they put in, in making this event a huge success once again.

Thank You!

The Blog is Back-ABC Book Week Edition!

The LRC blog is back after a short hiatus, and we want to start off by sharing all the exciting activities that took place during our Whole School Book Week!

by Jennifer Garcia LRC Coordinator

Preparations for Book Week 2025 began in November of 2024. These were led by the whole school Book Week Committee, composed of teachers and librarians from both primary and secondary schools. This committee set out to build on the successes of Book Week 2024 and, in doing so, found ways to increase its reach across the school through a multitude of activities and events. 

Some of the many highlights of this event were the visits by Silvia Pira, the author of Crush, who spoke to the 6th-grade students, and Alberto Pocasangre, the author of Nahual Blanco, who spoke to the 7th-grade students. 

The 11th grade had the opportunity to meet with  Alex Hernandez, a Royal Academia author and Manlio Argueta, author of UN DÍA EN LA VIDA, which the 11s are currently reading in Spanish lessons. This powerful event was followed up by a cocktail for all involved.

The 9th grade students had the opportunity to meet with Roger Lindo, who is the author of  EL PERRO EN LA NIEBLA, and grade 8th got to learn more about theatre in El Salvador through a presentation by Roberto Salomon (Teatro Poma)- "TEATRO EN EL SALVADOR: UNA MIRADA HISTÓRICA".

The ABC Arts Department hosted the PLAY "LA PERRERA" by the Rosa Mosqueta theatre group for the 6th grade students, with a few grade 7 and 8 Arts faculty students mixed in.

This year's Book Fair was a great success, with a record number of vendors, students and parents in attendance in the PAC. 

A great variety of high-quality books were offered by the many different vendors. Even the ABC had a book stand, which focused on selling the anthologies of short stories written by our wonderful ABC Students.  

• Tales on the Road: Stories that Surprise for 7-10 Year Olds. 
• Paper Chrysalides: Stories that Soar for 11-14 Year Olds.

Do please contact Mario Villalobos in the primary library or Judith Mendez in the LRC if you are interested in purchasing a copy.

A special thanks goes out to the wonderful book vendors who spent most of the week at the ABC: The LRC and Jubilee Libraries, Steps, Grelisal and AEIOU, Frikiland, Lovaimex, Clasicos Roxsil, Liliana Marti, Expresso Bibliografiico, Editorial El Salvador, Chicos y Imagen, Distribuidora Educativa Yanira Sounds, Tia Li, Internacional Libros y Regalos, La Ceiba.

The LRC ran two competitions during the week: the LRC Digital Book Competition and the Guess What the Teachers Are Reading Competition.

A special shout-out goes to Isabel Urias for winning the Book Week 2025 Logo competition for her creative vision in producing a logo that really encapsulated this year's Motto, From Reader to Character, Read your Way.

On Friday, we saw the return of the Dress Up as Your Favourite Character day, with a special spin on Heroes! 

We would like to take this opportunity to say a special thanks to everyone involved in making this year's Book Week a great success.  This would not have been possible without the hard work in preparing and running the event by the school libraries, maintenance teams and teaching staff.  

While everyone's efforts are greatly appreciated, a special thanks goes out to Mrs. Judith de Mendez (LRC Head Librarian), Mr, Mario Villalobos (Jubilee Librarian), Mrs, Monica Urbina (Sec. Head of Spanish) and Mrs. Edda Padilla (Primary Language Coordinator) for the many extra hours put in on planning for success and achieving with magnificence.