Book Week 2023

La Semana del Libro es una celebración anual que desarrollamos cada año como comunidad escolar para fomentar la lectura y la literatura.

Esta semana se celebra generalmente en abril y es un momento en el que se organizan una gran cantidad de eventos y actividades relacionadas con la lectura y los libros.

Uno de los principales objetivos de la Semana del Libro es promover la lectura en todas las edades y fomentar la alfabetización. Para ello, se organizan muchas actividades dirigidas a niños y jóvenes para inculcarles el amor por la lectura y la escritura.

Como escuela organizamos actividades especiales que incluyeron: 

La visita de escritores e ilustradores, que realizaron talleres con los estudiantes de Upper Primary, cuenta cuentos, titeres,  algunos estudiantes de 11th y 12th visitaron diferentes grados de Lower y Upper Primary para realizar la lectura en voz alta, interactuando con los más pequeños sobre la lectura, se realizo un forum de escritores conformado por alumnos, maestros y personal administrativo de la ABC,  se realizo un intercambio de libros en toda la escuela, los estudiantes de secundaria tenian la oportunidad de participar en trivias y juego relacionados a la lectura en redes sociales. Teniendo la oportunidad de ganar premios que brindo Internacional Libros y Regalos. Ademas se premio a la alumna qe diseño el logo oficial de la semana del libro ABC 2023, con el slogan "Leer es soñar con los ojos abiertos."

Isabel Urias de 7th

Forum de escritores ABC

Pablo Ventura de 12th moderador

El 25 de abril, el LRC llevó a cabo un panel para escuchar a un grupo diverso de estudiantes, profesores y administradores que son todos autores. Fue un evento interesante e informativo que atrajo a una gran audiencia. Los panelistas (tanto aficionados como autores publicados) brindaron información valiosa sobre el mundo de la escritura y la publicación, y compartieron sus experiencias y consejos para escritores aspirantes. El evento fue un gran éxito, ¡muchos estudiantes encontraron nuevas inspiraciones para convertirse en autores ellos mismos! En general, el panel sirvió como una gran oportunidad para que la comunidad se reuniera y celebrara la importancia de la escritura y la narración de historias.

English Version 

Authors Forum

Pablo Ventura, 12th-grade moderator

On the 25th of April, the LRC held a panel to hear from a diverse group of students, teachers, and administrators that are all authors. It was an engaging and informative event that attracted a large audience. The panellists (both amateurs and published authors) provided valuable insights into the world of writing and publishing and shared their experiences and tips for aspiring writers. The event was a great success, many students found new inspirations to become authors themselves! Overall, the panel served as a great opportunity for the community to come together and celebrate the importance of writing and storytelling.

Feria de libros

Este año las bibliotecas de primaria y secundaria lograron unirse para organizar la feria de libros a nivel de escuela, siendo está una verdadera fiesta literaria para toda nuestra comunidad educativa. Contamos con la participación de  11 editoriales que nos visitarón los días jueves y viernes, entre ellas: La Ceiba, Santillana, Barrilete, GRELISAL, Lovaimex, Clásicos Roxsil, Chicos e Imágen, Editorial Educativa, Tía Li, Indole Editores, Internacional Libros y Regalos.  Ha sido una experiencia muy especial ver compartir esta fiesta literaria con los estudiantes de todas las edades, maestros, escritores, ilustradores, y cada una de las editoriales invitadas promoviendo el amor por la lectura y conocer los nuevo títulos que se han lanzado.

We held two additional competitions during the fair, Book Week Trivia, and  Book Week Scavenger Hunt. The winners of these competitions received a special prize from the Libreria Internacional. 

Book Week Trivia   

Ana Olmedo

Book Week Scavenger Hunt

Adriana G-7D

The Art and Aspirations Board activity was well attended by students across Secondary as well as some 5th-grade students.  During the activity, students recorded their future aspirations on the various canvases, using text and images.

We invite you to view our photo gallery on Flickr and YouTube video from the day. Enjoy!

¡Qué genial iniciativa para celebrar el Día de la Tierra! 🌎

Es importante fomentar la conciencia ambiental y promover prácticas sostenibles en nuestra vida cotidiana. El uso de materiales reciclados para hacer macetas es una excelente manera de reutilizar materiales y reducir nuestra huella de carbono.

Además, el hecho de que los estudiantes hayan realizado esta actividad en la biblioteca LRC muestra un compromiso por parte nuestra institución educativa en fomentar la educación ambiental y promover prácticas sostenibles entre nuestros estudiantes.

Esperemos que este tipo de actividades inspiren a más personas a tomar acciones concretas para cuidar el planeta y construir un futuro más sostenible.

Por Hilda Gomez

LRC

WRO El Salvador 2023 launch event

The representatives of the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) El Salvador, with the help of Academia Británica Cuscatleca and Highlands International School, launched last Thursday, April 20th, the 2023 National Robotics Competition under the theme "Connecting the World". The launch took place in the ABC Learning Resources Centre. The event's objective is to promote the interest and talent of young Salvadorans in the field of educational robotics, as well as encourage the development of creative, collaborative scientific,  and technological skills.

According to the WRO website: 

"The WRO® theme for 2023 is Connecting the World. [...] Teams will learn about shipping logistics and about the infrastructure for our digital technology. They will investigate how robots can help both shipping and digital technology infrastructure to be more safe, more sustainable and more efficient"

 

El Salvador's National Robotics Competition 2023 will take place at Highlands International School San Salvador on August 29, and will encourage the participation of teams of different educational levels, which will compete in 3 different age groups and 4 categories as follows.

Age groups:

Elementary (8 -12 years old)
Junior (11 - 15 years old)
Senior (14 - 19 years old)

Categories:

• Future Engineers: Build an autonomous vehicle capable of traversing a game map in the shortest possible time while avoiding and following the directions of all obstacles. Participants may use any materials, software, and hardware platforms, as long as the solution is not a commercial product designed for that specific task. 
• Future Innovators: Identify a project and develop a robotic solution for it that could help promote automation and/or encourage global connectivity. As with  Future Engineers, participants may use any materials, software, and hardware platforms, as long as the solution is not a commercial product designed for that specific task. Older participants will be asked to create a business plan to mass produce the robotic solution.  
• Robo Mission: Design and build a LEGO®-based* autonomous robot to complete tasks on a given map as quickly as possible. Participants will bring their own parts completely disassembled to build, test, and complete the tasks on the day of the competition. 
• Robo Sports: Play double tennis with two LEGO®-based* autonomous robots against another team. This category follows a tournament format to select the winner.

* Only official LEGO pieces are allowed. 

The winners of each category and age group may be eligible to participate in the WRO International Final 2023 in Panama in November. 

This fun and educational experience is open to all students aged 8-19. Students can join teams of two or three participants by filling out this form. For more details, follow "WRO El Salvador" on social networks or contact the LRC.

STEAM FEST 2023

The ABC hosted the annual STEAM Fest Celebration on March 10th this year, in person and across the school. The event which was a huge success took place across the primary and secondary with primary grades up to and including 4th grade in the performing arts centre and the 5th grade together with secondary in the  Auditorium. 

Each year students from across the school get together to present a variety of exciting ross disciplinary STEAM(  Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) projects. This was extra special as it is the first year since the pandemic that our school has been able to invite guests from schools and organizations in the community. We were thrilled to have them join us and participate in the event. 

This year, we held our first hackathon during STEAM Fest, in which students from the ABC and Maquilushuat students schools worked on teams to solve a local parking and school drop-off challenge. 

In doing so they use a variety of digital and analog resources.

The hackathon was a huge success.

At the end of a rather intense day two very different solutions emerged and were presented. Here is a short video of Hackathon 2023 highlights. 
 

Hackathon 2023 

 The community was able to watch segments of  STEAM  Fest throughout the day via the live stream which took place in the Auditorium. This enabled parents to tune in and watch the students showcase their creations and share their ideas. It was inspiring to see the fruition of so much creativity, teamwork, critical thinking and innovation on display.

 The STEAM Fest top project results were announced last week, and the results are as follows. 

The tribal star competition also rendered some exciting results. 

Here is a short video from the event as well as the link to our Flickr album.

STEAM FEST 2023 

This year's STEAM Fest Celebration was a huge success, and we were thrilled to have so many guests from the community. It was a great opportunity for students to showcase their skills and talents and collaborate with other students from different schools. We cannot wait until next year's event and hope to continue to inspire and support our students in their STEAM pursuits.

Creative Destruction Summit

A few weeks ago an ex-student of ours, who is currently studying in Canada at the University of Toronto, contacted us about a wonderful, international, collaborative opportunity for our students, the Creative Destruction Summit. The summit which was held on March 7th is a "virtual international symposium of emerging technology for all high school students who are interested in STEM and entrepreneurship".

The majority of our 11th and 12th grade Computer Science, ITGS and Digital Society Students attended the two 1 hour sessions. After the initial session in which young entrepreneurs in the area of technology held a panel discussion, the students were sent to break out rooms in Zoom to discuss artificial intelligence and space with the other participants from around the world. 

Our ABC ROCS did a wonderful job of contributing their thoughts and questions during both sessions. Once the summit ended, they participated in discussions with their groups and in doing so did a great job of making further meaning and summing up their findings. 

These opportunities for international collaborative learning becoming a lot more common than they used to be. Many are brought to our attention by our very own exhibits who study locally and abroad and work across different sectors. This brings even further relevance to such opportunities as they provide further insight into a  wider academic world awaiting them enabling them to explore many possibilities which they may not have considered had they not been presented with these innovative learning opportunities.

We would like to thank all of the students who participated as well as the organisers who made this possible at UofT. A special thank you goes out to our two student Ambassadors, Giuliana Falconio and Natalia Rivas, both 11th-grade students, who were in charge of representing us and running communications in both Zoom and Slack. 

Wendys El Salvador- Visit with a Customer Service Robot

Every year in ITGS the 12th-grade HL students are presented with a case study that they need to explore, research and prepare responses to. This year they are focused on a case study that involved smart shelves, VR mirrors and customer service robots. One of the requirements of this work is that students engage in primary research. Robots are also a focus area of the SL curriculum. 

Wendys El Salvador and Zacamil Hospital in El Salvador both use customer service robots for slightly different purposes so it made good sense to contact one of them to explore further. What better opportunity than to interact with the robots, observe them in action, interview the people who make use of them and oversee their operation and also explore their impacts on customers through interviews and direct interaction with the robots.  We contacted Wendys a few weeks back and set up an appointment to visit. 

Today was the day!  Students had already collaborated on two pages of powerful questions in ITGS Class, in preparation for the visit and spent a good portion of the visit interviewing the restaurant manager as well as testing out the robot, putting it through its paces while exploring its interfaces, hardware and the sensors it uses to help it navigate. They even had the opportunity to interview a few customers and adopt the role of customers.

This was a fantastic experience full of relevant explorations and discussions which will not only help the students to better understand the impacts of customer service robots on society but also aid them in preparing for the analytical writing they will engage in throughout the remainder of their IB journey. 

Here is the link to the photo gallery from the trip. We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed taking part in it. 

Maker Market 2022

 This week Maker Market returned to the Secondary school after a 2-year Covid-19 induced hiatus. 

This was a scaled-down version of the prior Maker Market events.  That said, there were product contributions at stalls run by the 10th grade, 6th grade, the Maker Space Club, Sewing Club, and Mr. Martinez. 

A great many students and staff were involved in the planning and preparation of Maker Market 2022 which took place during both breaks on December 14th.  This event is one of the many opportunities for our students to engage in entrepreneurship through learning and in doing so find ways to engage in service learning. All profits from Maker Market sales are bound for the various grade-level charities where they are sure to make a positive difference. 

The event was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Here is a short video as well as the link to our Flickr Album so you too can enjoy this wonderful event from home. 

MAKER MARKET 2022 by the LRC