Ventures Ventures Everywhere

You may know what your Compass student is working on in their Venture Project, but we thought you might want to know what else is going on!

• Emmanuelle’s Venture is exploring news and media. Emmanuelle’s Positive News venture has been exploring the news in all its forms. We have watched news segments with and without sound, researched and analyzed various online news platforms, taken to social media to compare the news teens are exposed to there versus through more traditional sources, conducted interviews in Old Town Square to find out what the general population thinks about the news, and finally we have taken a trip to the Old Town Library to examine physical newspapers. This last activity was particularly exciting as the majority of students had never held, much less read a real newspaper! Overall, we discovered that the news is often negative and can give people, young and not as young, feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. We have idea-ted a variety of ways in which this could be addressed. We are now hard at work crafting our final products! 
• Elana’s students are taking a deep dive into exploring identity—an important aspect for this age group—and all other humans on this planet! They are working on exploring their own identities, and how different identities are represented (and misrepresented). 
• Dawn’s venture is delving deep into First Lego League Robotics and Tech Challenges. The theme of this year’s competition is “City-Shaper”—perfect for our community based learning model! In true Compass fashion, this venture is working on urban design with input from the City of Fort Collins Planning Department.
• Shamayim’s students are hard at work creating sustainability plans for the school. You may have seen them on the streets in Old Town participating in the Student Strike for Climate Change inspired by Greta Thunberg. We are getting lots of positive community feedback about our engaged students!
• Sam’s venture is exploring wildland restoration in partnership with Wildland Restoration Volunteers and the CSU Environmental Learning Center. Based on all they are learning about soil and plants and ecosystems, students are working in teams to design restoration projects for degraded parcels of land around town.
• Bonnie’s students are getting a head start on designing the Compass yearbook. And gauging how busy our students have been ALREADY—only one month into the year—they have their work cut out for them!
• Karen’s venture is exploring communication in the form of everything from Latin to computer coding. As part of this project, students are working with a local occupational therapist to design and make electronic toys that move and talk to donate to students with special needs. Along the way they have made some zombified prototypes!

Mark your calendar for the first quarter Exhibition of Learning, October 15 at 5:30p. You won’t want to miss seeing the products of these ventures.

Teamwork in the shop!