Supercast

Kamiko Adcock:
I have such a passion for filmmaking and I love being able to share that with my students.

Anthony Godfrey:
Of the students in your class, are there a few who've really sparked with this and have said "Wow, I really need to pursue this"?

Kamiko Adcock:
There's just dozens of students that are dying to get on sets that just graduated, starting production companies, working on short films. It's like the passion in them has really, really grown and it’s really cool.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to The Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. I had a blast spending time with the teacher you were about to meet. He went from teaching students in the classroom at Copper Hills High, to capturing a coveted invite to the Cannes Film Festival in France.

On this episode of The Supercast, hear the incredible story of the film and TV broadcasting teacher, who managed to produce a short film that was so good it was accepted at Cannes, and how he uses his experience and incredible talents to teach students at Copper Hills High.

We're here with Kamiko Adcock to talk about his experience at the Cannes Film Festival. Thanks for taking some time with us.

Kamiko Adcock:
Absolutely.

Anthony Godfrey:
We want to talk about a lot of things, but I'm a huge film fan and pop culture fan, so the fact that you went to the film festival is really exciting to me. Tell me about that experience and then we'll talk a little bit about the film that got you there.

Kamiko Adcock:
Yes, I mean, you know, as like a film lover myself, it's always been… Cannes always felt like this pipe dream, like, you have to get invited to go. There's a lot of misconceptions I had about it. But it was essentially ten days of living my dream, dream life. Of rubbing shoulders with industry professionals networking with really cool people, watching films months, maybe even a year before the public actually gets to see them. All on the French Riviera with the most beautiful views. It was just like the most unbelievable thing I've ever experienced.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, we're going to get into the details there. Tell me about your role here at Copper Hills High School, first of all, and then we'll talk about the film and your experience in Cannes.

Kamiko Adcock:
Cool. My role here at Copper Hills is I am the video production and TV broadcasting teacher. I started a couple years ago straight out from industry, so I'm an APPL candidate, alternate pathway to licensure. And, yeah, I kind of got here, and the first thing I thought with my big students was, "Let's make a feature film." So we've made two features up to this point, which is really exciting.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's awesome.

Kamiko Adcock:
They write, direct produce, edit all of it. And I just love... I have such a passion for filmmaking, and I love being able to share that with my students.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about those two films. What are the titles? What are they about? What was that experience like for you working with students, making those films? Coming from industry.

Kamiko Adcock:
Yeah, so the first one last year was “Right Club”. It's around 52 minutes, and it's on YouTube. And then this year's is called “Five More Minutes”. 78 minutes long. It's a sci-fi coming of age. Think “Inception” meets “Ready Player One”.

“Right Club” was very much kind of a, "Can we do this?" And then this year was a, "Okay, we can do it. Let's go bigger and better." It's much more ambitious. And it's, you know, as you get older, you meet people that are like, "I've got this script. I've got this killer script, and I'm really excited to make it." But they never do because it's harder to get things done as you age. Like you have jobs. You're frightened to have jobs.

Anthony Godfrey:
Sure.

Kamiko Adcock:
Warner Brothers won't come beating down your door to give you millions of dollars to make something that they've never seen you make before.

Anthony Godfrey:
Right.

Kamiko Adcock:
So with the students, they have a great controlled environment, where I've worked on a couple features before. So I know, generally speaking, how the process works. I've got set deadlines to make sure that they're coming along. And with that, yeah, in nine months, they've proven that they can make stuff. It's limited, you know, filmed a lot of it's filmed at school, and some of it's filmed outside.

Anthony Godfrey:
So “Five More Minutes”, talk me through about what the timeline is. How soon was the script written? Talk us through all the stages of that and about how long it took.

Kamiko Adcock:
Brainstorming starts the first day of school, and they have until end of September to get a rough draft written. So they have at least something written. And like when it comes to screenwriting, just write.

Anthony Godfrey:
Write something, yeah.

Kamiko Adcock:
Just write. You can go and fix it.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.

Kamiko Adcock:
So starting around October 15th, before we have a fall break, we do auditions. They've essentially gotten little bits of the characters. So they go through, they have auditions with the students at the school, and then they've cast the film before fall break.

Anthony Godfrey:
And that goes beyond the class. They cast outside of the class. This is the production class.

Kamiko Adcock:
Yes. We did it after school from around three o'clock to four. So nothing like super, super intense. We do the auditions in my room. They do sides in the back. So they film the auditions. They can go back and revisit them. And then by the time, like beginning of November comes, our script has been locked and finalized.

Anthony Godfrey:
And then those auditions can be included on the special edition of the DVD. The Blu-ray, second disc that, you know, includes all the actors that didn't get chosen.

Kamiko Adcock:
So we have a BTS department, and that is part of their job, is compiling all the, you know, as historians for the film. So we have around seven episodes on CH Studios, which is our YouTube page, just documenting the process. And my friends who are filmmakers, it's like their favorite part of my program is watching the BTS and scene students.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's really cool. So when Criterion Collection re-releases it, now all that footage is available to pull in.

Kamiko Adcock:
That is the absolute dream. And then have them bring me into the Criterion closet.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, there you go.

Kamiko Adcock:
And pick some DVDs.

Anthony Godfrey:
There you go.

Kamiko Adcock:
That would be very cool.

Anthony Godfrey:
Perfect. We’ll aim toward that. What is it that you hope students gain from that experience over the course of the year, seeing a film go from ideas to being posted on YouTube?

Kamiko Adcock:
Man, that's a great question. My goal with the feature has always been to give them confidence and help them know if this is what they want to do. You know, if they go to college and they make some shorts, and then at 25 they make their first feature and they realize, "Oh, I hated that." Then they've kind of spent seven years of their lives, you know, running maybe towards nothing then they're going to pivot, which I pivoted, you know. We all pivot. But to help them know right now of, "Oh, I love being on set." Granted, it's five hours after school. It's not a full 12-hour day. But it gives them little bits and pieces of what does set look like? What does problem-solving look like? And problem solving is probably the next big thing, is allow them to know and to work under pressure and be able to function and solve things as the problems come on.

Anthony Godfrey:
Those who have listened to the podcast will know that I frequently mention specifically about CTE programs, how important it is for kids to have the opportunity to see what they are interested in, but also what they are not interested in for exactly the reason you stated. You don't want to spend seven years building up to something that you ultimately realize isn't for you. And so, of the students in your class, are there a few who've really sparked with this and have said, "Wow, I really need to pursue this. This needs to be what I do."

Kamiko Adcock:
Yeah, so last year, one of my students, I like to bring in friends from industry to kind of network with the students and give them contacts.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.

Kamiko Adcock:
And a couple of my friends really like, they met one of my students and the student like really impressed them. So, once school got out, they invited them and said, "Hey, do you want to come PA?" which is a production assistant.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.

Kamiko Adcock:
Run errands on set, get people lunch, get people food. Do you want to come PA for this 48-hour film festival we're going to do? And that's the film that got us to Cannes. And so, I had a student that graduated last year that came to Cannes with us. And last year, there was, you know, a handful like Isaac. And this year, it feels like it's quadruple quintuple. There's just dozens of students that are dying to get on sets. They've just graduated, starting production companies, working on short films. It's like the passion in them has really, really grown and it's really cool.

Anthony Godfrey:
I absolutely love that. That is so fun to hear that it's sparked and launched some kids in that direction.

Stay with us. When we come back we'll hear about Kamiko Adcock’s experience at the Cannes Film Festival and which celebrities he got to see. Stay with us.

Never miss an episode of The Supercast by liking and subscribing on your favorite podcasting platform. Find transcripts for this episode and others at supercast.jordandistrict.org.

Break:
Hello, I'm Sandy Riesgraf, Director of Communications for Jordan School District, and we want to invite you to connect with us. So many exciting things are happening in your child's school, your neighbor's school, in every school here, every day. Don't miss out on following the fun or simply staying informed when there's important information we need to share. Join us at jordandistrict.org, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @jordandistrict. We can't wait to connect.

Anthony Godfrey:
So tell me about this film and how the 48-hour contest ended you up at Cannes.

Kamiko Adcock:
Yeah, so we've done it, I guess, so I did it the year before with my friend Jack. And it's a fun thing. 48 hours to write, outline, produce, and edit a seven-minute long max short film. You get a genre, you get a character, you get a line of dialogue, and a prop you have to use.

Anthony Godfrey:
And with all those restrictions, that way you can't just make a film in advance and then submit it and pretend you did it in 48 hours.

Kamiko Adcock:
Totally, yeah. So there's a lot of restrictions to what you can and can't do. Basically what you can do beforehand is get your actors, get your crew, and get your location. So we got this cool antique shop and we made this fun short about, I don't know if I would say it's fun actually. It's fun. It's a dark comedy fantasy about a man who's dating a ghost. The ghost is like, "All right, I want to be with you, but I'm a ghost. And so you've got to become a ghost too”, basically. And the whole short is the dialogue between them and him contemplating, "Do I want to be with this person who I love, who I've never seen, or do I kind of go my own way and continue my life?"

Anthony Godfrey:
And what's it called? Can we watch it?

Kamiko Adcock:
It's called “Sheet Talk”. We need to get it listed because with the 48-hour film festival, they basically told us, "Hey, keep it unlisted for now. We have the rights to it." So now that we just got done with Cannes, we can actually get it published. But I'll send you the link so that you can watch it and it'll be published by the time this is out.

Anthony Godfrey:
Great. “Sheet Talk”.

Kamiko Adcock:
Yep. “Sheet Talk”.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. So ‘Sheet Talk” got you to Cannes. Tell me about that experience. You said it was 10 days of just living your dream. Talk to me about that because I've gone to, I think it's now 21 years that I've gone in a row to Sundance. I love going to that film festival but Cannes is the granddaddy of them all. So tell me about that.

Kamiko Adcock:
It is like, so Cannes is headquartered kind of like right by the beach. There's what they call the Croisette, and it's got this massive 2,500-seat auditorium called the Grand Lumiére, which is ginormous. So that's where I watched Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis," his new--

Anthony Godfrey:
You've seen it.

Kamiko Adcock:
I've seen it. We could chat about it.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow.

Kamiko Adcock:
It is. Yeah. It's quite the experience. And then they have the Lumiére and the Agnés Varda Theater with two massive convention halls behind it, and that's where the film marketplace is. So sellers, film sellers, film buyers can go back there and just making deals. I have a friend who works at Angel Studios, and he was there for about a week, and that's all he was doing was meeting with distributors where I got to do a little bit of both, and I got to watch a lot of films, and it's elegant.

After 6 o'clock p.m. at the Grand Lumiére Theater, you have to wear a tuxedo to all the films showing. So we got into the “Horizon” premiere, had to wear a tuxedo for that. We wore a tuxedo for our own, and we tried to get into another theater, but like if you're not in gala attire, they won't let you in. So that was cool. We all bought tuxedos because it was cheaper to buy them than to just rent for 14 days.

Anthony Godfrey:
My gala attire is lacking, so I really could not have joined you. So tell me about the experience of showing your--did you show your film there?

Kamiko Adcock:
We did. So there's the main two, three big theaters. There's the Riviera, which is one of the convention floors, and the Palais, which is a big convention floor that also has screenings. So we got a little screening room that they gave to the 48-hour film project to display our shorts. It was the Wednesday after we got there, so we'd already kind of been there for a week. And it was great. Like it was probably a 70-seat screening room, and to be able to watch our short with the best of the best festivals, you know, I think a lot of--I tell my students, it's like it's very easy to look in your neighborhood to see who's the best at filmmaking. And I know this sounds cliché, but the best is internationally. Like you're not just looking at your neighbor. You got to look at people in Hong Kong. You got to look at people in South Africa, in Africa, you know. And it was really gratifying to see that we were some of the best.

Anthony Godfrey:
And even though there's global competition, that unique idiosyncratic personal project can really shine if it hits just the right mark. So you were there for two weeks. How many movies would you say you saw? I think we saw 13 of the screenings.

Anthony Godfrey:
And did you get a pass as part of the fact that you were screening, or did you have to pay for that pass on top of that?

Kamiko Adcock:
We got two passes, so my friend who's the director got one of them. And then the writer and me, the producer, we flipped a coin best out of five, and he won the other free pass, so I paid for mine.

Anthony Godfrey:
Anyone in particular that you were really excited to either talk with or just spot from across the theater?

Kamiko Adcock:
There was one person, George Lucas, got an honorary Palme d’or at Cannes. And like, Star Wars is the reason I love movies. And so we waited in line for four hours to... So essentially you can get tickets for the screenings at that 7 a.m. when it opens to book your screenings, or you can wait in like a wait list line to see if you'll get it. It's pretty successful.

Anthony Godfrey:
Same thing with Sundance, yeah.

Kamiko Adcock:
Yeah, so we waited four hours in line with our passes to see him, and so I got to see George Lucas talk about filmmaking for an hour and a half.

Anthony Godfrey:
That is insane. That is so crazy that you got to see that.

Kamiko Adcock:
Probably the coolest experience I've maybe ever had. Filmmaking-wise, probably the best experience I've ever had.

Anthony Godfrey:
That is amazing.

Kamiko Adcock:
And he was... It was funny. He talked about Star Wars for a little bit, but he spent the majority of his time talking about American Graffiti and THX 1138.

Anthony Godfrey:
Those are the ones that really taught him a lot about filmmaking.

Kamiko Adcock:
Yeah, and he was... Francis Ford Coppola's PA on his old, old films when he was starting.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow, yeah.

Kamiko Adcock:
So it was crazy to hear him refer to Steven Spielberg as Steve, or Martin Scorsese as Marty, because… You know, and that was great. And then we got to... We waited in line to get into Kevin Costner's “Horizon”, because we have some friends that are in it, so we really wanted to see the premiere. And we walked the red carpet. About 20 feet away from us was Michelle Yeoh from...

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, wow.

Kamiko Adcock:
“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Anything Everywhere All At Once”

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow.

Kamiko Adcock:
And that was really cool.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's fantastic. Well, it's a real pleasure talking with you, and I'm thrilled that you're here at Copper Hills giving this experience to these students. Bringing that industry knowledge and really sparking something in students that they didn't realize was there. Thank you very much.

Kamiko Adcock:
I love it, thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.

(upbeat music)

Anthony Godfrey:
I'm really excited about the fact that parents can optimize and customize how we communicate with them.

Steffany Ellsworth:
ParentSquare is gonna allow parents to choose how they want to engage with their students.

(upbeat music)

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. This week we'll be talking about our new parent communication tool, ParentSquare. I'm really excited about this new option for schools, parents, and teachers. ParentSquare is customizable, it has a ton of great features, and I can't wait for you to learn more about how we'll be communicating with Jordan School District families this year.

(upbeat music)

We're talking with Steffany Ellsworth, the Support Services Manager in Information Systems for Jordan School District, Steffany, thanks for taking a few minutes.

Steffany Ellsworth:
You're welcome, it's great to be here.

Anthony Godfrey:
We are launching, you are launching ParentSquare as our latest communication tool. Tell us, what is ParentSquare? Let's dive right in.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Okay, ParentSquare, it's an awesome communication platform created to streamline home-to-school communication. Parents in ParentSquare have the ability to choose the modality they prefer to receive messages, whether it's email, text, or app notifications. It also allows parents to select the frequency in which they receive messages, whether it's an instant message they get as soon as the school has sent it, or they can receive them digested daily at the end of the day. There's three types of messages. There's posts, which come across as a news feed similar to Facebook or other social media platforms.

Anthony Godfrey:
And do they access that through the app or on the website, or how do they access that?

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yeah, that's correct.

Anthony Godfrey:
The posts?

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yeah, they can see the posts on the ParentSquare website or through the app. They also get those posts as an email or a text. So if they never log into ParentSquare, they'll still get those messages through email or in a text message. They'll receive a link to see the post. The second type of message is direct messages. These are meant for one-to-one communication between parent and teachers.

Anthony Godfrey:
And how does that come through? Does that come through the app? Or is that also through text message and email? Is that what you're referring to?

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes, it's really all about parent preference. So if they've stated that they prefer to receive a text, they'll receive those through a text. If they prefer the app, they'll receive a notification through the app. If they've done nothing at all, they will receive a text and an email stating that they have a message and it'll show the message. Parents can respond directly to that text message to communicate with the teacher.

Anthony Godfrey:
So a post, much like on social media that you can view through the website or the app, and then text, email, or direct message through the app depending on what the parent chooses. And what's the third type?

Steffany Ellsworth:
The third type are alerts. These are our traditional messages that we've sent about snow day closures or emergency situations at the school.

Anthony Godfrey:
Don't say snow day closure, you can't jinx us.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Okay. (both laughing) Alerts will override any of the parent's preferences. They'll get those instantaneously and they will be a phone call, an email, and a text message.

Anthony Godfrey:
For the direct messages and for the school-wide or district-wide messages, parents can decide, I want to receive all the messages at once, or I'll receive them as they're sent throughout the day. So they have that choice.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
But an alert is going to override any of that. So if there's a snow day, an emergency, something that we need to let parents know about right away, it'll come by phone, text, and email, and that overrides the preferences.

Steffany Ellsworth:
That's correct.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. You can safely say, you know, I want everything one time a day, but you'll know that you're also going to get emergency communication in a timely way.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
So what do parents need to do? When they're registering their student for school, the contact information that they enter goes into ParentSquare and allows us to communicate with them that way. What else do they need to do to make the most of ParentSquare?

Steffany Ellsworth:
So parents can sign into ParentSquare, set their notification preferences, their language preferences. All of their contact data is synced from Skyward, which is really nice because they complete registration for school every year and update their contact information. They don't have to do that multiple times and go into ParentSquare and enter their contact information again. It's going to sync over from Skyward nightly. So complete registration from school. Then to get signed into ParentSquare, they can either download the app– there's an iOS or an Android app available through your app store. They can download the app, or if they choose not to sign into ParentSquare, they'll still receive emails and texts. However, if they do choose to sign in to ParentSquare, they'll get to select, do I want to receive an email or a text or both, and how often do I want to receive those?

Anthony Godfrey:
So you don't need to sign in in order to receive messages, but you do need to sign in in order to manage how you receive those messages.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yep, yep. And to sign in, they'll just visit parentsquare.com or download the app and sign in using either their phone number or email address that they've provided to the school.

Anthony Godfrey:
So the same email, same phone number will get you in there. That's great.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yep.

Anthony Godfrey:
And now if they want to update their information through the year, they move during the year or want to receive information in a different email or phone number, sometimes once you start getting those messages, you think, okay, I don't want it coming to my cell anymore. I want it coming to this other phone number. How do they go about changing that?

Steffany Ellsworth:
The nice thing about ParentSquare is again, that all of our contact information is synced from Skyward, so it doesn't need to be managed in two different places. You can either update your contact information in Skyward's Family Access or contact your school and let them know that you've had a change in phone number or email.

Anthony Godfrey:
Can they choose not to receive messages at all?

Steffany Ellsworth:
They can, yes. They can unsubscribe from messages. However, they're never going to be able to unsubscribe from those emergency alert notifications. So anytime there's an emergency alert sent, it's going to send. If they do choose to unsubscribe, they need to know that they're also unsubscribing from direct messages from their teachers too.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, so unsubscribing is an option. Can they manage the information that they receive and only get one-to-one messages but not receive the broader messages from the school or district?

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes, they can. So really the better option rather than unsubscribing is to set the frequency versus posts versus direct messages and how you choose to receive those.

Anthony Godfrey:
So really, families ought to take a few minutes just to kind of customize what type of communication they want. For a while, every communication I got from the school, I would forward to my wife and then she'd let me know, "I'm getting those too, don't worry." You don't have to be forwarding them. So just kind of taking a moment to think about what's the best way for us to communicate as a district and for the school to communicate with families. That's a good thing to do at the start of the year, especially with this new ParentSquare program.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Absolutely. ParentSquare is going to allow parents to choose how they want to engage with their student's school to make it more customizable for them and make it easier for them to communicate.

Anthony Godfrey:
We've been talking about the next step in parent communication for a long time. One of the things for me that was really attractive about ParentSquare is the idea that this does go to text messaging. It doesn't require a separate app. Although there is one, you don't have to go to one more app to get this, the communication from teachers, the school, or the district. But the important component there is that you can manage whether you get texts and how frequently.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
Because we all check our text messages, we all check our email, but probably text messages with greater frequency. So we don't ever want to be a pest, but we also want to make sure that parents are getting good information in a timely way. I'm really excited about the fact that parents can optimize and customize how we communicate with them.

Steffany Ellsworth:
It’s really convenient too. You know, if a teacher sends a direct message to a parent, the parent can simply reply via text. They don't have to ever log in. They can reply via text. They can save that number for future reference to send the teacher a text. You know, they'll want to pay attention to the teacher's office hours 'cause we know teachers have other lives outside of school.

Anthony Godfrey:
Right.

(upbeat music)

Stay with us. When we come back, we're going to go over some more user-friendly tips to make the most of ParentSquare. And we'll let you know how to get ahold of the help desk if you need assistance.

(upbeat music)

Never miss an episode of the Supercast by liking and subscribing on your favorite podcasting platform. Find transcripts for this episode and others at supercast.jordandistrict.org.

(upbeat music)

Break:
In Jordan School District, we like to support students in and outside the classroom along with their families. That's where the Jordan Family Education Center comes in, offering support services and a wide variety of classes for students and their families, free of charge. You can take a class called Blues Busters for children feeling sad or worried. Just Breathe is a class that helps students reduce stress. Or how about a class that supports parents in helping their children make and keep good friends? There are also support groups and free counseling, all provided by Jordan School District school psychologists, and counselors. To find out how you can benefit from free family support services offered by the Jordan Family Education Center, call 801-565-7442 or visit guidance.jordandistrict.org.

(upbeat music)

Anthony Godfrey:
Now I know that a lot of other districts are starting to use ParentSquare as well. And previously teachers used Remind 101 and then it was called Remind. There was a free version of that that a lot of teachers in Jordan used. We used Skyward and Skylerts that came out of our student information system. Talk about how we got to where we are now using ParentSquare and the relationship between the old Remind and Remind 101, ParentSquare, and Skyward.

Steffany Ellsworth:
You know, really one of the biggest requests that we get from schools in regards to communication is the ability to text parents. So we started looking at different options to be able to text parents without requiring parents to download an app. ParentSquare stood out as soon as we started researching this option. And then we learned that ParentSquare also acquired Remind. So with that, they took on a lot of new functionality, a lot of capabilities as far as texting and sending group messages. ParentSquare can be used not only to directly communicate teacher to home but it can also be used to communicate for extracurricular activities. You know, say a wrestling coach or a band instructor can contact their entire group of students similar to Remind through ParentSquare.

Anthony Godfrey:
It connects to Skyward, which is great for families and the contact information as you describe, but it also helps teachers because they're able to say, I wanna text a reminder to everyone in this class of what's due tomorrow. And they can send it to the student's phone with that going through a school system. So it's appropriate communication, it's an appropriate method of communication, but it's also direct instant communication so that the student gets a reminder or information about a meet, event, or assignment. And I'm really excited about that.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Students will use what's called StudentSquare. So they'll download a different app, it's called StudentSquare. It's only available for grades 7-12, but students can communicate with their club advisors, their coaches, their teachers using StudentSquare.

Anthony Godfrey:
Now we have a wonderful help desk and information systems for employees and for parents. Talk about how they access that and how they can get help with ParentSquare if parents have any questions.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes, we do. If any of their contact data is looking incorrect or it appears that data is not syncing properly from Skyward, they can give us a call at 801-567-8737. We can take a look at it there.

Anthony Godfrey:
Operators are standing by.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes, absolutely. Sometimes we will refer them back to the school just because the school needs to be the ones to update contact information or verify that they're actually speaking to a parent.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, so you can sometimes start with the school, but you can also call the help desk anytime and you're great to jump in and sort through things and help people out.

Steffany Ellsworth:
That's right.

Anthony Godfrey:
And if they're in ParentSquare, where can they get help from ParentSquare directly?

Steffany Ellsworth:
Logged into ParentSquare, the app, or the website, there's a question mark in the upper right-hand corner. Click on that. They have awesome help articles and videos.

Anthony Godfrey:
We'll put that in the show notes to be sure they're easy to access for anyone listening. And the trainings took place this summer. Like I said, we dove right in once ParentSquare was selected. I've heard a lot of enthusiasm from schools, just the functionality of being able to more effectively communicate with parents more directly in a more timely way. So this is really exciting for us. We want to strengthen that connection with parents always and I think this is a great tool to help us accomplish that.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Definitely.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, thanks for all your work to get us this far. Tell us a little bit about your journey to be in the position you're in right now in Information Systems. Where did you start out?

Steffany Ellsworth:
You know, I started with the school district as a part-time attendance administrative assistant at Joel P. Jensen. I loved it there. They have awesome students. I then became a registrar at Copper Hills High. Loved that job too, loved working with the students. And then I moved on to the help desk. So I worked on our help desk. I became a Customer Support Analyst, where we configure Skyward and train on how to use Skyward and other systems, Canvas, and things. And then I moved into the role of Support Services Manager, working with both the help desk and the school techs.

Anthony Godfrey:
I didn't realize that you had been a registrar. To me, you're just the person that I always think of when I need help. (laughs) You do a fantastic job. You help with all kinds of things in Information Systems. You have for a long time and I just really appreciate everything you do.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Thank you. That's so kind to hear. And, you know, being a registrar really was one of my favorite jobs I've ever had. It's such a challenging position, but also a rewarding position.

Anthony Godfrey:
Absolutely. Well, thanks very much, Steffany.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Thank you.

(upbeat music)

Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you will do today. We'll see you out there.

(upbeat music)

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. They are the best of the best coming right out of college, many of them heading right into Jordan School District classrooms. Who are they? Well, you're about to find out.

On this episode of the Supercast, we sit down with some very talented interns who are well on their way to full-time jobs as teachers, thanks to a partnership between Jordan School District and local universities. It's a pretty cool program with some pretty cool people.

We're here talking with Jane Olsen today about our intern program in Jordan School District. Introduce yourself and talk to us a little bit about the future intern programs we have going.

Jane Olsen:
So I'm Jane Olsen. I'm in Human Resources and I'm a Talent Acquisition and Licensing Specialist. So our intern–

Anthony Godfrey:
Talent Acquisition and Licensing Specialist. I'm trying to see if that makes a good acronym. TALP? No, it doesn't really work.

Jane Olsen:
No, it doesn’t really work.

Anthony Godfrey:
Alright. And tell us about acquiring talent in Jordan District.

Jane Olsen:
So one of the ways that we acquire talent is through our intern program. So we have three partnership universities, BYU, UVU, and U of U and we house anywhere between 22 to 13 interns per year. We have a really high retention rate on those because it's a really wonderful opportunity to have a great realistic job preview from start to finish as a teacher instead of a really short preview when you're doing a student teaching experience of about 12 weeks.

Anthony Godfrey:
Most people are used to student teaching as the concept for how you learn to be a teacher. Many people may have when they were in school had a student teacher. So can you describe what the traditional student-teacher program looks like? Which we still have a lot of student teachers in our district. And then what the intern program looks like and how that's different.

Jane Olsen:
So for an intern, it is actually full year teaching. The biggest difference for them is they actually have a dedicated intern facilitator that they work with all year long. So from start to finish, from classroom setup, even when the summer they'll be preparing their curriculum. But student teaching, on the other hand, it's more concentrated. You have a gradual release of about 12 weeks and you're only in charge of the classroom for about two weeks. So in terms of ownership and accountability for that classroom, it's much higher at an intern level.

Anthony Godfrey:
The intern with a lot of support is the teacher for the year.

Jane Olsen:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
And the student teacher starts out with observations, does a few lessons, and as you said, for about two weeks takes over the class.

Jane Olsen:
Yeah. So as it determines a realistic job preview, you're not really getting the full experience of setting up your classroom, setting up the rules, setting up an entire year worth of curriculum, and making sure that you're following through on the planning. Student teachers, they have an opportunity, just a small window of opportunity to see what that looks like. The parent interaction is obviously going to be lower as well because in two weeks you're not going to have as many interactions with parents than you would over the course of a school year.

Anthony Godfrey:
You get the full experience, you're part of a team, you interact with your peers, and so it's really exciting that we have this many opportunities in the district, and it's been growing lately.

Jane Olsen:
Yes, it has. So this year we actually hired 13 of our 18 interns at our teacher transfer fair. So that's a huge retention rate for us. 72% of our interns turned into full-time teachers for us the following year. So we're really excited about having them come in. This year we have 18 interns as well, but one will be at a secondary school, which is the first time I've seen that since I've been here.

Anthony Godfrey:
You and I have worked together for a long time, and you've seen the patterns over time. Tell me this year, how many teachers did we hire for, like last summer, last spring?

Jane Olsen:
We hired about 450 teachers last year.

Anthony Godfrey:
That just gives everybody a little bit of perspective. And you heard from Jane on a previous podcast when we talked about our new teacher induction and celebrated the first of many to come where we welcome our new teachers and this is another way of welcoming new teachers. By the time they've been an intern for a year, they know what it means to be a teacher, and they know what it means to work for Jordan's School District and the level of support we try to provide.

Jane Olsen:
Yeah, and I love the idea in terms of an internship. It's a growth-related opportunity. Instead of just seeing this small fraction of time, you're actually seeing the growth of your students. You're seeing the growth in yourself participating in PLCs. You're seeing the growth opportunities within the district and how the district operates and what we offer in terms of professional development.

The interns that I've talked to highlight that Jordan's School District is all about support and growth, and this is a really great way for them to continue to grow in their professional opportunities with a lot of support. I can't imagine going into Human Resources and actually having someone dedicated to me for the first year. That would have made me such a better professional quicker than what I've been able to get to at this point.

Anthony Godfrey:
I love what you say about getting the rewards of seeing student outcomes over the year. That's something I hadn't thought of. If you're student teaching, you still get the reward, you still get that relationship with students, but not nearly as much as you would by spending the whole year as their teacher. It provides consistency for the students in their class throughout the year so they don't have a student teacher come and go, but they have someone all year long.

Jane Olsen:
All year long, yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
The student teaching experience is still a very positive one. This is another way of approaching that. It provides some different experiences and a different level of support.

Jane Olsen:
Just in comparison, last year we had about 240 student teachers that are coming in and out of our classrooms from a variety of universities. There are more partnerships related to student teaching than there are to interns, so there's a different level of support that comes in for the interns. We're going to see a student teacher for a snapshot, but we really cultivate the relationships with our interns.

Anthony Godfrey:
For those of you who are wondering how we pay for this or how all of this works, if you're thinking about doing it, what you would be paid, talk to us about the compensation. There's been a change from the legislature as well as student teachers are compensated.

Jane Olsen:
What I understand in terms of the legislation at this point is that we will be able to pay student teachers about $6,000 for their experience. In the past, it's been an unpaid, which has made it a real burden on a lot of those that are entering the field of education to be able to engage in that, because 12 weeks going unpaid in this kind of economy can be really difficult. But on the flip side with the interns, the interns actually receive what we call half of their base salary, and then we pay them the full teacher salary supplement. So it averages out to be about $33,000 as of this year. We don't know what that'll look like exactly next year, but we're hopeful.

And then some of the universities receive travel stipends due to the distance from their home location. So it can become quite the great compensation package that you're actually getting paid to come and travel to Jordan School District and have the great experience. And then you're already on a step two next year, so you're already kind of a lane ahead of what you would be if you would have just graduated as a student teacher.

Anthony Godfrey:
So the half pay that allows us to then pay for the support with the rest of that salary?

Jane Olsen:
Yep, it pays for the intern facilitator.

Anthony Godfrey:
Exactly. And then, you know, the state has doubled in the last year the pay that they paid directly to teachers.

Jane Olsen:
Correct.

Anthony Godfrey:
And an intern qualifies for that, and that's what bumps it up to the $33,000.

Jane Olsen:
Yep, so that's $8,400 that they get paid from the legislature.

Anthony Godfrey:
Right. That's great. Tell me about the schools that we partner with and how that looks for each school. I've talked with interns from all of these programs in the past, but describe the differences and how someone would get involved if this is something that they think they might want to do.

Jane Olsen:
Yeah, so if you're considering a career in education, the three partnership universities that we have with interns is BYU, UVU, so Utah Valley University, and then University of Utah. Each program has its own little unique nuances. For example, the University of Utah is the Urban Institute for Teacher Education. So their experience is going to be more tailored to our Title I schools, which is the school that we're partnering with is Oquirrh Elementary. BYU has five partnership schools. We have Black Ridge, Columbia, Daybreak, Midas Creek, and Mountain Point. One of those schools is a DLI school. So if you're looking for that experience with Spanish, we do have Mountain Point. And then with UVU, we have our two schools, Butterfield Canyon and Eastlake. Eastlake is also a DLI school, but it's a Chinese DLI school.

So depending on what your area of expertise is, you could potentially be selected for any one of those school locations. The max that we would have at any one location when it comes to interns is three. So that would be the max ratio for you to the intern facilitator. So you have somebody that's really only working with two to three of you at a time, really dedicated time, and they have no other responsibilities, which is unique to Jordan. So they don't have anything that's going to pull them away or out of the classroom, or they're not teaching another class next door. They're dedicated to your growth and development.

Anthony Godfrey:
And in some districts, they have administrative responsibilities, almost like an assistant principal. But here, they really are simply focused on helping those two or three candidates become great teachers.

Jane Olsen:
Yeah, and they do become great teachers. I can tell you that after the teacher transfer fair, one of the pieces of feedback for any of the administrators who interviewed our interns is they were so impressed with the quality of those interns from any one of the programs. They were excited to work with them, and one school even hired three of them.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow.

Jane Olsen:
So we definitely have great interns that are coming out of these programs.

Anthony Godfrey:
I love that we have that pipeline. And training teachers, giving them great support means that thousands of student lives are better because they have a great teacher that really has a head start on instruction and classroom management and everything else it takes to be a great teacher.

Jane Olsen:
Exactly. All of us can remember a teacher that impacted us in such a significant way. My math teacher actually teaches at Elk Ridge that I had in ninth grade, and I can tell you that that was the first time that I felt like I was really good at math. So we have some amazing teachers in Jordan.

Anthony Godfrey:
Stay with us. When we come back, we'll hear more about these interns and hear from them directly about how excited they are to be teaching students in the coming year.

Break:
Are you looking for a job right now? Looking to work in a fun and supportive environment with great pay and a rewarding career? Jordan School District is hiring. We're currently filling full and part-time positions. You can work and make a difference in young lives and education as a classroom assistant or a substitute teacher. Apply to work in one of our school cafeterias where our lunch staff serves up big smiles with great food every day. We're also looking to hire custodians and bus drivers. In Jordan School District we like to say people come for the job and enjoy the adventure. Apply today at employment.jordandistrict.org.

Anthony Godfrey:
We're here with three of our BYU interns to talk with them a little bit about what made them want to be teachers, and what they're looking forward to in the coming year. So tell me your name and where you're from and a little bit about what made you want to be a teacher.

Brandon Jensen:
My name is Brandon Jensen. I'm from San Diego, California. First off, I just hated my desk job that I first had. But also, when I turned 16 and first could work, I started working with kids. I'd go to school all day and I worked with kids for three hours and I'd get home and I wasn't tired. I was excited because I knew I'd made a difference. I knew I was a positive impact on these people. Then when I got into the program at BYU and was able to come into the schools, I could see that I was making a difference, that I was connecting with these kids, and that they were excited to learn and excited to learn from me because they could tell that I cared. That was immediately, I was like, "I'm all in. This is it. This is what I want to do."

Anthony Godfrey:
Your desk job did not offer that to you?

Brandon Jensen:
No.

Anthony Godfrey:
What was your desk job?

Brandon Jensen:
I started as a computer science major. I worked with data entry, which is just like I look at a PDF and I look at an Excel sheet and I make sure they say the same thing and it's just draining all day. I'm still doing that until I start teaching, but it's like I can do teaching all day and still have the energy to go do that because that drains my energy at the end of the night.

Anthony Godfrey:
It's a little more predictable than teaching will be, I think.

Brandon Jensen:
Probably.

Anthony Godfrey:
But also less engaging by a long shot. Tell me where you're from and about your interest in teaching.

Kara Cooper:
Yeah, of course. My name is Kara Cooper. I'm from Draper, Utah. I've grown up in Utah my whole life. I love to be outside. I love to do things with my family. I have a pretty big family. Yeah, my interest in teaching started honestly in high school. I have lots of family members who are teachers and I am someone who's genuinely curious about the world. I love learning. I love helping kids see how the world works around them and be curious and imaginative.

I had really awesome teachers all throughout my education and they just inspired me to be a teacher. So that was really important for me. Just seeing how much they loved me and cared about me really helped me even though I had loving and caring parents. I was with my teachers most of the day, so it was amazing to see that.

Anthony Godfrey:
Sounds like you have a lot to choose from, but tell me, are there a couple of teachers that really stand out that made an impact on you?

Kara Cooper:
Yeah. It was honestly probably my first-grade teacher. Her name is Mrs. McNamara. She really helped me to just see that I am smart and she believed in me and believed in my potential. That really helped me a lot just to know that I can do hard things, that I'm not bad at certain subjects, that I can do them. It's kind of like a TED Talk we were listening to by Rita Pearson. She was just saying that it's not minus 18, it's plus two. You can't, you didn't fail completely, but you can keep going and trying. I love that about her.

Anthony Godfrey:
Awesome. And who are the family members that are teachers?

Kara Cooper:
My mom, she's a secondary education teacher. She teaches English in high school. Then my grandpa, he actually taught fourth grade for about 20 years.

Anthony Godfrey:
Very cool. And how about you?

Jenna Montejo:
I'm Jenna and I'm from Portland, Oregon. I feel like I always bring back my love of teaching and wanting to be a teacher back to an experience I had while living in Chicago. I was working a lot with the Hispanic community in Chicago. I was teaching English and there was just a specific little girl that I was teaching English to. She had just immigrated from Mexico. They were just in this tiny apartment and they'd come from a whole, I mean they'd had a ranch with animals. Just seeing her trying to adjust and wondering what supports does she have, like who's advocating for this little girl at her school, like what's going on there.

So I feel like that really kick started this desire in me of, specifically I feel like I'm a TESOL minor and just very, I don't know, very passionate about student minorities and advocating for them and being there for them. So I feel like that really is kind of where I come from and what I'm most excited for with teaching. What I'm most passionate about, what inspires me I guess with that.

Anthony Godfrey:
And tell us what a TESOL minor means.

Jenna Montejo:
It's Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, great. Well, that will come in handy for sure. We have three classes of lucky students right now. I can see that already. Tell me what grade level and school have you been assigned to?

Brandon Jensen:
I'm teaching fifth grade at Black Ridge Elementary School.

Anthony Godfrey:
And is fifth grade something that– I guess you'll find out whether fifth grade is where you want to be at right?

Brandon Jensen:
Yeah, one of my practicum, which is we spend four weeks right, I was with sixth grade at Blackridge and it was awesome. Just working with the facilitator there and meeting the principal and meeting all the other teachers, it was just a phenomenal experience.

Anthony Godfrey:
Sixth graders know they're about to hit the middle school so there's a little bit of different mentality.

Brandon Jensen:
Little bit of sass.

Anthony Godfrey:
Fifth graders, you know, might be down 20% on that. So that's good, that's great. How about you?

Kara Cooper:
Yeah, I'll be teaching fourth grade at Midas Creek Elementary. That's in Riverton.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, awesome.

Kara Cooper:
I also had experience with fourth grade in practicum.

Anthony Godfrey:
Fourth grade's a big academic year, big.

Kara Cooper:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
They really move forward on math and some big subjects. So fantastic, that's great.

Jenna Montejo:
I will be teaching second grade at Columbia Elementary.

Anthony Godfrey:
Columbia Elementary, where your minor will come in very handy.

Jenna Montejo:
Yes, I'm very excited for that.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, all three of you have a range of experiences ahead of you at very different schools with different grade levels. So I'm really excited for you and I'm very excited for the students who get to be in your class.

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you will do today. We'll see you out there.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey.  It is a class that combines biology and technology, giving students the tools to change the world for the better and improve people's lives.

On this episode of the Supercast, join us as we take our own microscopic look into the biotech program inside JATC North. It is a program where young student scientists study things like genetics, DNA isolation, protein methodologies, and much more. Some students are even engaged in finding cures for life-threatening illnesses like cancer.

We're here at JATC North to learn more about the biotechnology class. And here to talk with us about it is the teacher, Dr. Carlson. Thank you very much for talking with us.

Dr. Carlson:
It's my pleasure. I really love to talk about this.

Anthony Godfrey:
I'm most focused on your role as a teacher, but you have a storied resume leading up to your time here at JATC North. So tell us about your background.

Dr. Carlson:
I would love to. I first started in a lab years ago in a human genetics lab, and we were some of the first individuals to develop markers that were placed on chromosome maps. From there-

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow.

Dr. Carlson:
-From there I participated in a group that cloned a gene that causes 1% of colon cancer. It's a hereditary form of the gene. It's called adenomatous polyposis coli, APC. And because of that work, if families have that mutation, they can be better screened so that their risk of cancer goes down.

Anthony Godfrey:
And you said it's APC?

Dr. Carlson:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
I believe I know a family that has that gene because in their family, they get tested in their 20s.

Dr. Carlson:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
Even as a teen, they get tested early on because of that gene that's been identified.

Dr. Carlson:
Absolutely, yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
So before we talk about more of your resume, you right from the start saw the positive impact this has on humanity all over the world.

Dr. Carlson:
Absolutely. I was always interested in cancer biology. I got my PhD in cancer biology and felt like I was able to contribute to that field. I'm very proud of that contribution. Later on, I decided that I wanted to share my research background with students and try to encourage young women to pursue careers in science. And so that's really why I'm here now.

Anthony Godfrey:
And you worked at the Huntsman Cancer Center as well?

Anthony Godfrey:
I got my PhD at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
And after getting your PhD, how long have you been here?

Dr. Carlson:
This is my 10th year teaching biotechnology.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wonderful.

Dr. Carlson:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
And have some of your students gone on to pursue this as a career?

Dr. Carlson:
They have. I've had some students go on to obtain graduate studies in biochemistry, or chemistry rather. I've had others that have gone into biomedical engineering.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.

Dr. Carlson:
So they've graduated in biomedical engineering. I've had others go on into the medical laboratory sciences. And I have another couple of students who are pursuing graduate studies in, one is I believe medicinal chemistry, and another is in molecular biology.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow.

Dr. Carlson:
So I'm really proud that there are those former students who have decided to pursue that path.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's a big deal, and it's a big lasting impact. It must be very rewarding to hear that students have pursued this line of study and as a result are making a huge impact in the world.

Dr. Carlson:
Definitely.

Anthony Godfrey:
What are some of the things you cover that might surprise students?

Dr. Carlson:
We do, I have students bring in a food that we test to see if it's genetically modified.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, wow.

Dr. Carlson:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
So what are some of the– are corn dogs genetically modified? Because I eat a lot of corn dogs.

Dr. Carlson:
It might be. We'd have to test.

Anthony Godfrey:
We'd have to test.

Dr. Carlson:
I can’t say for sure.

Anthony Godfrey:
All right. They probably don't. They probably just give up and say, look, it's a corn dog. We're not going to worry about it. What are some of the foods that we know are genetically modified?

Dr. Carlson:
A lot of your corn-based products are genetically modified soy. One thing students learn about is the successful genetic engineering of the papaya. You can clone a gene from the ring spot virus into a papaya and it protects it from a disease that kind of ravages the crop. And so that's been done in Hawaii.

Anthony Godfrey:
So it sounds like a genetically modified food would be something to avoid, but actually, it makes it possible to produce the food more safely and more consistently.

Dr. Carlson
Yes. So this class isn't about telling students what they should think about genetically modified foods.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.

Dr. Carlson:
It's about informing them of the pros and cons and letting them choose for themselves.

Anthony Godfrey:
What percentage of the time in class is spent hands-on in the lab?

Dr. Carlson:
Well, it varies. If it's a very theoretical unit, we spend a little more time in the classroom than we would in the lab. But our fourth quarter, we have an independent project where students do their own experimentation. They think of a topic that's interesting to them. They devise their own experiments. They carry them out.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.

Dr. Carlson:
They create a scientific poster and then they bring that poster to what we call a poster symposium. We bring in judges from industry or academic labs to judge and then they compete for hopefully scholarships and prizes.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow. Well, let's take a look around the lab and see what you've got here. Show me some of the great contraptions and gadgets you have. Okay, let's start here. No food in microwave. [LAUGH] Tell me what this microwave is used for besides frozen corn dogs since it's not used for that.

Dr. Carlson:
No, no food in there. So students, when they have their microbiology lab, we have to prepare auger plates and we autoclave it because it's a media.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.

Dr. Carlson:
We also make gels so that we can allow for DNA to separate by size in a gel. It's a lot like Jello. We put it in a mold and then we have little places we can put a sample. And then we apply electricity to it. And so in that way, we can run out DNA. We can separate it by size.

Anthony Godfrey:
You put DNA in a gel, add electricity, and separate it out?

Dr. Carlson:
Yeah, yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
That sounds pretty awesome.

Dr. Carlson:
We use that machine over there that has the camera.

Anthony Godfrey:
All right, let's go walk over there.

Dr. Carlson:
Okay.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, I see.

Dr. Carlson:
And then we always add a chemical to the DNA that makes it fluoresce so we can take pictures. So these are all DNA bands.

Anthony Godfrey:
DNA bands, yeah. How about that?

Dr. Carlson:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's exactly how you imagine it. That's incredible.

Dr. Carlson:
Yeah, so it's a lot of fun for students.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, yeah, I'll bet.

Dr. Carlson:
Yeah, so they also do their own 23andMe. So for instance, we try to determine what kind of bitter taste receptor gene they have. So they isolate their own cheek cell DNA. We amplify it with a technique called PCR and then we have them run out the gel so that they can determine whether they have two copies of a bitter taste receptor gene or one copy or they're not a taster.

Anthony Godfrey:
And what does the bitter taste receptor gene say about a person?

Dr. Carlson:
Only that they might have a tendency, if they have a bitter taste gene, they might not like broccoli and they might not like other foods that have sort of a bitterness to them.

Anthony Godfrey:
So they don't like broccoli. It sounds like it's a pretty universal gene then.

Dr. Carlson:
I like broccoli.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, you like broccoli.

Dr. Carlson:
And I'm a taster, but there might be certain foods that they just shy away from because of that.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. So that's a particular component of DNA, a particular gene?

Dr. Carlson:
Yes, it is. And it involves taste perception.

Anthony Godfrey:
So that's a particular gene.

Dr. Carlson:
Yeah, so we learn about that. We also look for a deletion in students' DNA that might protect them from a certain virus and so we look for that. It's a 32-base pair deletion. So we learn about the history and then students usually get excited about whether or not they have that.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow. So it really is a 23andMe project that you do yourself.

Dr. Carlson:
It is, it really is.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow. Okay, talk about seeing the world in a different way.

Dr. Carlson:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, thank you for providing such a unique, and engaging, and important experience for students here.

Dr. Carlson:
Yeah, you're welcome. It's my pleasure. It's something I'm very passionate about. And again, I just hope I can recruit more students to really appreciate the great resource that's here.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, it's a fantastic opportunity. Thanks very much for taking the time with us.

Dr. Carlson:
My pleasure. Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Stay with us. When we come back biotech students talk about their poster projects and competition, a complex competition judged by industry professionals.

Break:
Hello, I'm Sandy Riesgraf, Director of Communications for Jordan School District, and we want to invite you to connect with us. So many exciting things are happening in your child's school, your neighbor's school, in every school here, every day. Don't miss out on following the fun or simply staying informed when there's important information we need to share. Join us at jordandistrict.org, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @jordandistrict. We can't wait to connect.

Anthony Godfrey:
We’re now in the atrium of JATC North for the poster symposium. Tell us about this event and what we're about to see.

Dr. Carlson:
This is an annual event. It's our 16th year doing this. It's an opportunity for students their last quarter of their high school experience to pick an independent project, experiment in an area of their choosing and then they represent the results of their experiments in a scientific poster. We bring in judges from industry and academic labs to come and judge them and then we are able to offer small amounts of scholarship and prizes to the top six placers.

Anthony Godfrey:
Outstanding.

Dr. Carlson:
As well as a student's choice award.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's great.

Dr. Carlson:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
A student's choice award.

Dr. Carlson:
Yes, that too.

Anthony Godfrey:
Nice, that's awesome.

Dr. Carlson:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
So how many classes are represented here?

Dr. Carlson:
My two classes, I teach both biotechnology and medical forensics. So it's students in both of those classes that are participating.

Anthony Godfrey:
Fantastic, and who are some of the industry partners that end up coming to judge?

Dr. Carlson:
Nelson Labs has been a huge supporter of us. We also have some individuals from the University of Utah Labs. Some of my former students are here, which always makes me so proud that they stayed in the field and progressed. And so we couldn't do it without them, and we also have two teachers from Itineris to help us out.

Anthony Godfrey:
Really? Wonderful.

Dr. Carlson:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
Let's walk around and see some of the posters and talk with some students. Hi, Zach, tell me about your poster.

Zach:
Basically, it's the functional properties behind my project was to essentially capture some microplastics so that it'll be much more easy for bacteria to –bacteria that eat plastic– to basically eat it since it's basically caught in the mesh.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.

Zach:
And using that process to essentially expedite the process of, the eating process.

Anthony Godfrey:
So, is this the long-term solution to microplastics in your opinion?

Zach:
I would say that it is one part, but not the only part.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.

Zach:
I think biodegradables is the most effective way to do it. But this is definitely one step forward.

Anthony Godfrey:
Even for bacteria, it seems pretty sad to live on a diet of microplastics.

Zach:
Well, not if their food is microplastics. I mean, it's just-

Anthony Godfrey:
Fair enough. It's all a matter of perspective.

Zach:
Yes. Their perspective is if it's plastic, I can break it down into a lot of energy. Since the long chains of plastic itself are just bunches of energy chopped up into little portions for the bacteria to essentially eat, grow, and produce off of.

Zach:
I love that you can describe it in a way that makes plastic actually sound appetizing. Like, hey, I can do a lot by eating microplastics.

Zach:
I mean, it's, it's all just a matter of taking big chains and transferring them to small chains and energy.

Anthony Godfrey:
It's such a pleasure meeting you.

Zach:
Thanks for having me.

Anthony Godfrey:
We have a lot of great things ahead of you. This is, this is great work.

Zach:
Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hi, Maddie. How are you?

Maddie:
I'm great. How are you?

Anthony Godfrey:
Good. Can you talk to me about your poster? It looks great.

Maddie:
Yes, thank you. So my poster was about humectants and moisturizers and how well they're able to retain waters in different gels. So basically, a humectant is an ingredient in most moisturizers that binds the water to the skin, which is really important since skin doesn't really absorb much. So you want to keep water on the skin for as long as possible to avoid, you know, getting dry skin or getting dehydrated skin.

So what I did is I created four identical moisturizer recipes just changing out the humectant each time. So I tested honey, hyaluronic acid, which occurs naturally in our bodies. I tested propylene glycol, which is the only synthetic humectant. And I tested glycerin, which also occurs naturally. I tested these on two different types of gels, an agarose gel and a Ly agar gel, which are basically gels that have a lot of water content in it, which is perfect because they'll generally dry out when left for a while.

So I tested the same amount on each gel. So for the agarose gel, I tested it for 72 hours and these were the results after. So the glycerin absorbed into the gel, like basically all the way. The propylene glycol and the hyaluronic acid absorbed in the gel, but they still had a little bit of product left. And the honey absorbed, but it left kind of a lot of liquid on the top. It had ended up leaking out.

Anthony Godfrey:
So that would not work.

Maddie:
Yes, basically. And then for the agar gel, due to time restraints, I was only able to test it for 24 hours, but I was still able to get some really good results. So the honey halfway absorbed in the propylene glycol and the hyaluronic acid didn't start absorbing at all. And then the glycerin began the absorption process. I wanted to test it with a moisture meter to quantify the data and how well it was able to retain the water. but the moisture meter I had was faulty. I put it in pure water and it said it was dry. So I couldn't trust those results.

But just based on the moisturizers alone, I was still able to come to a good conclusion on which would be the most efficient. So you would think that the honey or the glycerin would be the best because it absorbed in. But when products claim that they're fast-absorbing, it basically just means it goes on your skin and then it immediately begins evaporating. So nothing's really going into your skin. It's just being absorbed into the air.

Anthony Godfrey:
So they make something bad sound good.

Maddie:
Exactly. Exactly. And so the best ones would end up being the hyaluronic acid and the propylene glycol because they were the thickest and they absorbed the least amount in the gels within the 72 hour time period and the 24 hour time period. Because you want the moisturizer to be able to sit on your face for a longer amount of time to keep that water on your skin for a longer amount of time.

Anthony Godfrey:
So you don't want the moisturizer going anywhere. You want it to stick around.

Maddie:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey: Hold that water there up against the skin. So based on all of this, are you looking at products in the store differently and saying, “OK, this one is claiming something that it's not really going to accomplish.”

Maddie:
Yes. There's a lot of false marketing, especially in cosmetics. So you really want to be wary of what you're buying, especially if you know the ingredients so you can see what would be good for your skin and what wouldn't.

Anthony Godfrey:
You look at your poster, it says, ‘I would like to acknowledge Mrs. Carlson.’ Tell me about being in Mrs. Carlson's class. What's that like?

Maddie:
So I'm in the biotechnology program. I originally joined it for the forensics because that was something I thought I was interested in. But Miss Carlson, she's such an amazing teacher. And she really cares about what she teaches. She is so smart. I came into this program thinking I was going to do forensics and then I ended up really loving the biotechnology aspect of it and just being in science. And she's so encouraging. She was so present in this process. And she was so helpful in all of this so I really appreciate her.

Anthony Godfrey:
She's tremendous. And you're brilliant. You've done a great job here.

Maddie:
Thank you so much.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thank you. So Kiana, tell me about your project here. Tell me about the poster.

Kiana:
So my project is about increasing cold tolerance in yeast using a gene called MYB108. It is a cold tolerance gene.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about why cold tolerance in yeast would be something that you would want to study.

Kiana:
It can be useful for lots of different things. One of the reasons is because breweries around the world, they have to keep their breweries at certain temperatures to keep the yeast content and happy so it can keep growing and reproducing. But if we were able to do this, it would save them a lot of money on heating and regulation for these temperatures. And they'd be able to do these things at a lot lower cost.

Anthony Godfrey:
And so how did you go about doing that?

Kiana:
So what we did was we obtained bacteria that had this MYB108 plasmid inside of it and then we extracted that using a plasmid extraction technique. We also got a plasmid for a green fluorescent protein, or GFP, for yeast cells and we also extracted that. We put both of those into a different yeast strain that was a French Cezanne yeast. And we were able to transform that into the yeast. And then we put those yeast in different liquid cultures, at different lowering temperatures 4 degrees, 12 degrees, and 20 degrees Celsius. Then we compared that with the French Cezanne yeast without any plasmids inside of it. And we were able to determine that the yeast with the plasmids inside of it did have more tolerance to the cold and it did grow more than the yeast without any plasmids in it.

Anthony Godfrey:
For those who don't know, describe what a green fluorescent plasmid is.

Kiana:
So a plasmid is a sort of little wall of DNA that you can transform or put into different things like bacteria or yeast. And the bacteria or yeast takes on the gene that's inside of those plasmids.

Anthony Godfrey:
So you're modifying the genes of the yeast actually?

Kiana:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
And by doing that, you can make them more resistant to cold? And why green fluorescent?

Kiana:
We did the green fluorescent protein so that we were able to determine if the yeast actually did take the plasmids easier. Because sometimes yeast doesn't like to take in some of the plasmids and it doesn't want to take the DNA. So we did the green fluorescent proteins in the yeast to see if it did in fact take in the plasmids.

Kiana:
So what made you want to study cold tolerance in yeast? I'm really interested in genetic engineering and being able to manipulate DNA or add or extract genes from things like bacteria, yeast, plants, animals, things like that. And so this is kind of a stepping stone that I use to go into that field.

Anthony Godfrey:
I think this is really impressive and obviously there are a lot of applications. What do you plan to do after high school?

Kiana:
After high school, I plan to go to college at the University of Utah and study biology with an emphasis in genetics and genomics.

Anthony Godfrey:
I'm glad you're doing that. I think you're going to discover some great things. Congratulations.

Kiana:
Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you will do today. We'll see you out there.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. You could say they are young bookworms aspiring to become authors.

On this episode of the Supercast, we take you inside Barbara Stevens' 5th-grade classroom at South Jordan Elementary School, where the Wit and Wisdom language arts curriculum is helping students develop a love for language. In fact, Mrs. Stevens got them so excited about reading and writing, they decided to use their talents to become young authors. Listen and find out how.

We are at South Jordan Elementary School talking with Mrs. Stevens and some of her students about their Wit and Wisdom project. Introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about Wit and Wisdom and what's been going on.

Barbara Stevens:
Okay, so we were eager to get going on the Wit and Wisdom curriculum. The first book that we tried was in Module 2 called The Phantom Tollbooth, a book which I had actually not read before. It was fun because it started with the Abbott and Costello and talked about wordplay and how to play on words. You know, “Who's on First”, and they did that whole skit and analyzed it.

Then we jumped into the book, which does a lot of wordplay as well. And in there they had, you would name the characters crazy things like, they went to the abandoned elementary school and the principal was Mrs. McQuitter, or she was the mayor. So we took an exploded moment and modeled and wrote in that style.

At first, I was really nervous when I told the kids. I don't usually let kids write in dialogue a lot. I let them write one-time dialogue, but this was like dialogue back and forth, back and forth. We had to teach them their separate paragraphs for each person who talks and all the commas, and the periods, and the quotation marks. I was hesitant to teach that, but we went ahead and they ended up actually loving it. Loving it so much that they were like, let's do more and I had to put extra credit. Okay, extra credit. You can do another one. Okay, extra credit. And so, yeah, I'll let them share their experience because they did really love the creative work that was behind it.

Anthony Godfrey:
So there were opportunities for them to learn exactly how to write dialogue with all the tools, all the punctuation that goes with that.

Barbara Stevens:
Yes, it was embedded into the curriculum. And, you know, I've been teaching for a bazillion years, but I had never done that before, so I really had a little bit of cold feet about it.

Anthony Godfrey:
Let's talk about your bazillion years of teaching. I know that you've taught in other states, other schools.

Barbara Stevens:
I actually am a retired teacher from Denver Public Schools.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.

Barbara Stevens:
And then decided to come back and Mr. Eardley was kind enough to give me an opportunity to come back with some people I already knew here. And, yeah, I'm back in the classroom.

Anthony Godfrey:
And you are an early adopter of Wit and Wisdom. So as a retired teacher who worked in another district, I really admire that you're diving in on a new program. Tell me, just for those listening who may not understand what Wit and Wisdom is, tell us a little bit about what that involves and why that brought you to the Phantom Tollbooth as a result.

Barbara Stevens:
Yeah. Well, I kind of enjoy the curriculum because it takes you into places that you haven't been before, you know. I mean, even myself doing something I had never done before, I grew and the kids grew from it, and we benefited together, learning together. Wit and Wisdom has four modules. It was just brought in, just adopted this year, right?

Anthony Godfrey:
Right.

Barbara Stevens:
And then we went ahead and jumped into module three with the wordplay unit. We've actually moved on now into the Civil War unit, so we're doing expository once again, which is kind of a grim reality after doing wordplay.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, right. Right.

Barbara Stevens:
But we really enjoyed just the opportunity that this curriculum has taken us into learning new things.

Anthony Godfrey:
It's part of the literacy curriculum, but it covers a lot of other topics, connects it to a lot of other subjects, and provides all the books that go along with those lessons.

Barbara Stevens:
Yes, and it has language arts embedded into it as well. There's a little language arts lesson attached to each lesson as well. We have writing and reading, yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, writing and reading and...

Barbara Stevens:
And language arts.

Anthony Godfrey:
All bundled together.

Barbara Stevens:
And, did I forget, social studies.

Anthony Godfrey:
Right.

Barbara Stevens:
Because right now we're in Civil War, and we'll do Chief Joseph for the first module next year.

Anthony Godfrey:
And when you can layer all of those things and connect them to each other–

Barbara Stevens:
Oh, it's amazing. I love the way it has content that you can sink your teeth into, you know, that you really are learning content at the same time you're learning skills.

Anthony Godfrey:
Whereas in the past sometimes it was just disparate paragraphs and isolated sentences that didn't really connect to broader meaning, but now you described well just how layered that learning can be.

Barbara Stevens:
Exactly. We were doing noticings and wonderings that we were doing in social studies, and they were looking at this book on the Civil War, and I said, "What kind of noticings do you have?" And Lily raised her hand, she's not here, but she said, "Yeah, I'm noticing that history is a dark place." I said, "Yeah, it can be."

Anthony Godfrey:
Yes, it can be.

Barbara Stevens:
It's a good noticing.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yes, it can be. Tell me again about the exploded moments. What exactly does that involve?

Barbara Stevens:
Yeah, so back to Phantom Tollbooth, they had to have a character that was out of Abandon Elementary School, so they had to pick a name of the character that would go to a school that was like an abandoned elementary school. So it was a play on words with that, and they had to have dialogue back and forth with someone at the school, and they had to have a little problem that they would overcome and a little situation that they were in.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.

Barbara Stevens:
Yeah, using wordplay.

Anthony Godfrey:
What can you tell me, what's the overview of the Phantom Tollbooth? What's it about?

Barbara Stevens:
It's about a boy who is lackadaisical, he's not passionate about anything. Then he goes into an adventure, into a made-up land, I guess, and he meets all the Lethagarians.

Anthony Godfrey:
The Lethagarians?

Barbara Stevens:
Yeah, he goes into the Doldrums and he meets the Lethagarians, and he learns to start thinking for himself, which gets the wheels moving on his car so he can move. He goes to Dictionopolis and Digitopolis, and he rescues Rhyme and Reason at the end. And so it's all play on words, very whimsical.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. Sounds fun.

Stay with us. When we come back, students from Mrs. Stevens' classroom read some of their writing.

Break:
Hello, I'm Sandy Riesgraf, Director of Communications for Jordan School District, and we want to invite you to connect with us. So many exciting things are happening in your child's school, your neighbor's school, in every school here, every day. Don't miss out on following the fun or simply staying informed when there's important information we need to share. Join us at jordandistrict.org, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @jordandistrict. We can't wait to connect.

Anthony Godfrey:
Let's talk to the students about their experiences with the book. So tell me your name and tell me your favorite part of the book.

Noah:
My name's Noah, and my favorite part was all the adventure. It had a lot of adventure and the quests from it.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, awesome.

Lizzie:
My name's Lizzie, and my favorite part is when Milo meets Tock, the watchdog.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. Milo meets Tock, the watchdog. Okay. Tick tock, as in tick tock, yeah? Okay.

Halle:
I'm Halle, and my favorite part is when he goes into the Doldrums because he's just so adventurous.

Benson:
My name is Benson, and my favorite part is probably all the things you have to do to get out of Trouble.

Anthony Godfrey:
So it sounds like there's wordplay throughout the book, and is it kind of a puzzle to be solved a little bit, it sounds like? Okay. Tell me, can you think of some of the wordplay, some of the puns or the jokes in the book that you thought were particularly funny?

Noah:
Yeah, in all the characters, they would have a name, and like on Tock, he was a watchdog, and he had a watch inside his body, and he'd keep track of all the time, and he'd get mad when somebody would kill time or waste time.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, okay. Wow. Kill time, waste time, and a watchdog. I've never thought of all those things together. That's awesome. How about you?

Lizzie:
When Milo jumped to conclusions, he actually jumped to the island Conclusions.

Anthony Godfrey:
I need to read this book. This sounds so cool. Okay, tell me your favorite.

Halle:
Their names was probably my favorite because they were just so like, you would never really think of them that much.

Barbara Stevens:
I remember you really liked the demons when they showed up. They had a Tenacious Tedium where they got stuck doing tedious tasks and couldn't get out. He was one of the demons.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow. Very cool.

Benson:
My probably was the demons that would like, they would have different names for their reasons why. Like, you have to do that.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. Okay, cool. Wow. This sounds like quite a book. So, we're going to start right over here with Noah, and I'd like you to talk about what writing project you chose and then read like a favorite paragraph of yours, a favorite part of what you wrote.

Noah:
It was fun. You had to make up your own teacher, student, principal, whatever, and my mine was a teacher and it's Mr. Disorder and I'll read a little bit of mine.

Anthony Godfrey:
Mr. Disorder? Yeah. Okay.

Noah:
It was always out of order.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.

Noah:
My name is Milo and this is Tock answering Milo.

‘So far he did not like the classroom. There were also a lot of ungraded papers on the teacher's desk. “Hi” grumbled Tock. “Why is there nobody in the classroom, Mr. Disorder?”

“Why? I just let them go early. School is just a waste of time. Learning is useless. It's a piece of cake, not learning everything.” answered Mr. Disorder as he was walking across the room.”’

Anthony Godfrey:
Awesome. I love that. Noah, do you hear idioms and wordplay differently having read this book and gone through these lessons with Mrs. Stevens?

Noah:
Yeah. Learning, well, all of it means more.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. Do you notice them more than you used to?

Noah:
A lot.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, Lizzie, tell us about what paragraph you wrote.

Lizzie:
My paragraph was about Mr. Deserted who's a teacher and Milo joined his class.

“Mr. Deserted, can I speak with you?” Milo questioned.

“What do you need, kid?” He grunted in reply.

“Why did you give everyone an F-? I worked hard. I at least got one right. It's like you didn't even try. Did you?” Milo whispered in his sad voice.

“I didn't. It's way easier, kid. You'll learn that someday.” Mr. Deserted replied in a deep, booming voice.

“But then they have nothing to look forward to after all that hard work!” Milo shouted in anger as he clenched his fists.

Anthony Godfrey:
What was your idiom?

Lizzie:
It's later on.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, it's later on.

Lizzie:
It's Mr. Deserted.

“Mr. Deserted looked around clearly not wanting to spill the beans.”

Anthony Godfrey:
That's really good dialogue and you read it very well also. I could see that you had really thought through those characters. That's great. Okay, Halle, tell us about your passage here that you wrote.

Halle:
So mine is about where I named this kid Quitter and it's about where the demon meets Quitter and Milo. My favorite paragraph is,

"Milo, if we die, tell my mom and dad that I love them and that I don't know why I have bad grades. I like to finish every assigned paper halfway through," said Quitter faintly.

“Okay, I will. And if I die, tell my mom and dad I love them too”, said Milo.

Anthony Godfrey:
Very nice. Lots of drama in just those few lines. There's a lot going on. And I've said paragraph, but there's a new paragraph for every line, as Mrs. Stevens so clearly pointed out. So did you find that making new paragraphs and putting all that punctuation in was difficult at first but got easier along the way? Okay, Benson, read your passage to us and tell us what you wrote about.

Benson:
So I wrote about my character as a teacher, Mr. Left, and he did not like to finish things all the way.

‘Milo and Tock and Mr. Left were in a dark and gloomy school with bad food. While Milo turned to Mr. Left and asked, "Why do you like reading books?"

“Because you can learn a lot from them,” said Mr. Left, as he closed the door and came back to his chair.’

Anthony Godfrey:
Very cool. Mr. Left, I like that because there's always things left undone. This seems like really fun schoolwork. Tell me what it's like to be in Mrs. Stevens' class. I'll bet a lot of fun things happen in there. Tell me about what it's like to be in her class.

Noah:
It's a lot of fun because you get to read the book and you have the lesson for every chapter, and you can review all of it and understand it more.

Lizzie:
Mrs. Stevens explains the lessons clearly so we know exactly what to do.

Halle:
We have a lot of fun doing projects in school, and sometimes we can work with partners, and it makes me want to look forward to school.

Benson:
She's helped me become a better writer and typing.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, you're all very lucky to be in her class, I can tell you that. Talking about exploding moments, is there a favorite moment in class that you can think of? She's teaching you a lot, that's for sure. Any moments you want to explode?

Noah:
All of the writing projects, and we have to make up our own characters and their personalities.

Barbara Stevens:
I really like the way they just sparked up once the book got to the demons. They were like, "Oh, forget this Abandon Elementary, we want to write about the demons." That was interesting because I said, "Yeah, go ahead, you can do it in your extra credit, get those demons in there." Then later in the curriculum, we saw that they were going to do another exploding moment with the demons. I think the curriculum knew where they would be, peaking their interest.

Anthony Godfrey:
Good.

Barbara Stevens:
You guys like the demons.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, you all did a great job writing. Aside from the writing and the reading, what are some other things that you've loved in Mrs. Stevens' class?

Noah:
Science. We get to do a lot of projects in science. The other years we don't really do a lot of stuff, but now we actually get to do it in real life.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hands-on, real experiments.

Barbara Stevens:
Most of that is FOSS. It's the district curriculum.

Anthony Godfrey:
Great.

Barbara Stevens:
Still sticking with the curriculum.

Anthony Godfrey:
Awesome. Fantastic.

Barbara Stevens:
They're growing the wheatgrass right now and got the worm habitats going. The butterflies are coming next.

Anthony Godfrey:
Worm habitats. I must have been sick for the worm habitat part of fifth grade. I missed out on that.

Lizzie:
I like social studies and we always do Kahoots before the real test.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, yeah. I love Kahoots. Do you get more points if you're fast on the Kahoot?

Lizzie:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
How about for you?

Halle:
I also like social studies because you can learn more about the history and everything behind it.

Benson:
I probably like science too because of all the fun activities we get to do. When we get to see catterpillars turn into butterflies or have the worms get bigger.

Anthony Godfrey:
What's one of your favorite moments from this year?

Barbara Stevens:
Well, I love this class. We have a really good cohesive class. They're great kids. I think one of our passions is we do a lot of history. We talk a lot about history. That's why I was so excited about Witten Wisdom because I love history. It takes it deeper by having the content in your reading and writing program. It fits pretty much hand in glove with the way we like to learn, the way we like to teach. I've been excited about that.

We also do nature walks, don't we? We like to go on nature walks. We've done one down to the fishing ponds. We do rotations there. This was in FOSS. They like to have a nature part at the end of their investigations. We walk the neighborhood sometimes. We had a fun time when we walked the neighborhood. We were supposed to look for landforms that were made with natural resources. We came across Sawyer's house on that walk. He had a bunny in the backyard. Halle caught the bunny. It was his pet bunny that he just kept in the backyard. It's kind of a good moment. That was fun. We did it again the next week.

Anthony Godfrey:
Lots of great things happening. That's really cool. I think you all realize just how lucky you are to be in Mrs. Stevens' class. We're very lucky to have her here at South Jordan Elementary. I'm lucky to get to sit with you and hear your writing and hear about your experiences in fifth grade. I think you're all fantastic authors and great learners. Thank you so much for spending time with me today.

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the mos important thing you will do today. We'll see you out there.