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The West Potomac Academy offered a two-day Career Camp on the teacher workdays for students to participate in hands-on projects to explore classes and careers available at the academy. On the first day of camp, students in grades 4-8 learned about careers in communications and the arts while completing projects such as mixing and composing music as sound engineers, using television production equipment to produce a music video, screen-printing a custom T-shirts, and designing fashion accessories. The second day of camp consisted of students solving a crime scene by combining efforts in the fields of criminal justice, dental, pharmacy, medical health sciences, and PT/OT. Campers gathered clues from the crime scene, controlled contamination of evidence by compounding and applying hand sanitizer, checked vital signs, applied CPR techniques using medial equipment, examined bone and muscle injuries, and identified bite marks by taking wax bite impressions.
Three former West Potomac Academy students teamed up with their teacher to produce a documentary that explores the contributing factors that relate to and/or lead to homelessness among veterans titled Beyond the Wall: The Homeless Zone. The documentary was released on Veterans’ Day, Tuesday, November 11, on a platform website that included corresponding journalism and a digital library of interviews. The students also attended the screening of the film on Monday, November 3, at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., and were able to work as volunteers to take behind-the-scenes footage and photographs.
Students and parents attended an evening session to learn about the internship opportunities available for students at the West Potomac Academy. A business partner of the academy, Sally Tierney, entrepreneur and dance instructor of Just Dance in Alexandria, addressed the group on the value of the mentor/internship program.
Chantilly Academy’s Girls Exploring Engineering (GE2) students hosted the “Hands-On Technology Fair” on Saturday, November 15, for hundreds of elementary and middle school participants in the FIRST Lego League Regional Competition held at Chantilly High School. GE2 students manned booths that encouraged exploration in STEM careers, Acoustic Engineer, Aerospace Engineer, Architect, Forensic Scientist, and Inventor through “fun” learning activities for FLL students. ExxonMobil’s grant for GE2 included financial support for GE2 elementary and middle school outreach programs.
Teachers have selected 52 students to serve as Fairfax Academy Ambassadors for the 2008-09 school year. These students will attend monthly planning/training meetings, represent their class at special events, serve on student panels during winter open house activities, host Academy guests, and assist with planning Academy programs. As part of the Creative Leaders Project, these students will assume a broader leadership role within the Academy.
Chantilly Academy signed a new school/business partnership agreement with GTSI Inc. to support Information Technology (IT) and Business Education at Chantilly High School and Chantilly Academy. GTSI is an information technology solutions provider offering a Technology Lifecycle Management (TLM) approach to IT infrastructure solutions delivered through industry-leading professional and financial services.
The new partnership will include GTSI employee guest workshops and course enrichment opportunities, student internships in information technology and business, professional development opportunities for Chantilly faculty, field trips to GTSI’s state-of-the-art server laboratory, and collaboration with George Mason University on career pathways to GMU’s Volgenau School of Information Technology and Engineering.
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