I have the son of one of my high school team mates in my homeroom. He is not very interested in school, is very capable but prefers to work on his dad’s construction site. Trying to give him a larger buffet of experiences, I invited him to rebuild the microsphere. He rebuilt it without needing a map. He could visualize the pattern and liked working with his hands. I am hoping to build on this success and see if he will do some soldering.

Twice during these holidays, 6 high school students and 2 university students came in for 4 hours each to work on their projects. It was amazing to have the physics lab abuzz with work. There were no distractions, no bells, no requests to go to the bathroom, no cell phones. Just some good classic rock and lots of creativity. All were surprised at how fast the time went. They were in a state of Flow. It was fun enough that they asked to do it again!!!

Having university students mentor the high school kids not only provided confidence that the high school kids were ready for what comes, but they also provided an area of expertise that I did not.

I have a number of science 10 students who need to do course selections that will direct their whole futures in just a few months. They say that they do not need math or science 10 because they are going to do trades. The fastest mental math people I know are construction workers and plumbers.

When asked if they have ever done anything like trades before, they say no. So they are deciding the futures having never built anything, never held a wrench or a hammer. They need a project to help them legitimately pass my sci 10 class, but more importantly help them discover things about themselves to better inform their upcoming decisions.

Thanks to Anglophone East giving us a $500 sustainability grant and Desjardin giving us a $2800 grant, we were able to purchase two bikes. Thank you for 4 other local bike shops for submitting proposals. Explore Velo had the best proposal. The bikes arrived and over the holidays, I spent days disassembling perfectly good and tuned up bikes right down to the frame.

Starting next week, these same students will get to practice using a wrench and reading directions, and research youtube videos to assemble the bikes. Fingers crossed.

After a very successful 2 year secondment to Brilliant Labs, I am back in the classroom. Now I am teaching Science 10- Science for a Sustainable Society. The topics are around chemistry, circuits and power generation. I wanted students to make a tangible difference in their lives, to live a more sustainable life rather than just do a project and write a test. Of course, you should never follow someone who is not willing to go first.

I promised both classes that I would cycle to school every day that it was safe. I have tried to make this school year resolution for the past 3 years and only lasted 2 weeks. Not only did I tell students, but I also told parents. I am committed now.

La Bikery helped me reduce, reuse and recycle my 1990’s mountain bike from my New Mexico desert days. Other than cables, chain and rear cassette, we were able to update from the original parts to a 1×7 format.

So far, it has been 100%, even on the day that it rain so hard the puddles were over my axles. In order to show the students that I am doing it, I put the bike in my classroom. When the snow gets deeper, it will become too messy to store the bike there.

There is an interesting experiment happening. When I get my bike out of the cold shed in the morning, I max out at 5th or 6th gear and it is much more of a workout. However, when I ride home, I take the bike from the nice heated school and I easily travel in the 7th gear. It has been -10oC and 20 cm of snow. We will see what happens when it gets really cold!

My earliest memories of me and my Dad were driving in an old Dodge Dark, listening to “hit the road Jack, don’t ya come back no more no more”. We went out to a garden plot where he would make a golden rod bow and arrow and he would garden.

When we lived in a house, we had a backyard garden, which I helped in when I had to. Other than the carrots that you could eat with still a bit of dirt on it and the peas right out of the pods, I did not like much of what came out of the garden. I did not inherit his green thumb.

Now that I will be coaching teachers on hydroponics, I guess I better get some wisdom from the experienced. Dad came into the school. It was not the way he left it! So much tech. Despite all the high tech, learning how to germinate seeds goes back a long time and perhaps the most complex machine in these little seeds. We set up 3 or 4 pods of different seeds just to see what happens.

Ideally, we would get good enough at this that we could have these along the hall and students could pick their lunch!! We will see.

It has been a week and a half. Some are well on their way.

There seems to be lots of demand for hydroponics kinds of things and a desire to help automate them. I have never really coded anything before. “But Mr Fogarty, your projects have lots of coding in them!” My response is,” I have students who learn to code.” My job is not to do the thing, but to create opportunities and make things happen. I should know lots of things, but not everything.

But now I am going to be the one people are looking to. I better start to learn!!

After a 12 hour day, another 12 hour day, a 14 hour day and a 12 hour day (what a start!), I might have something. I felt like I did in grad school. Let me try this one last thing and then I’ll go home. What about this one last thing… It is addictive!!!

I finally have a code to turn the lights on and off.

The big problem is that people forget the towers and the pumps run low and break. So I wanted to use a float switch as an automatic emergency shutoff. After almost 87 tries, I think I finally have it, thanks to help from Josh Keys, who did to me what I praise him for doing with students. Gives a little hint, asks questions, provides a bit of background every once in a while. Frustrating!! and what a sense of pride when you get it!!

Then he sends me a description of a state machine. I am tired and so I will put that learning off for another time. I feel like my sons felt when we build the shed. I needed to learn if the boys were trades kids or not. So we built a shed. At first I handed them a hand saw, then I brought out a skill saw. The next day we used a hand drill for hours, then we used an electric drill. Everyday was the same.. a bubble level and plumb line, then a laser. It was a great learning experience, but frustrating. While you are learning, it is about the process less about the product. Josh made me feel similarly. But I have a code that works. When I learn State machines, I am sure it will be better.

Last week, I started a secondement from Anglophone East where I have been teaching Chemistry, Physics and Math for 25 years. I will be working for Brilliant Labs with a focus on NB high schools. The timing is fortunate because NB is embarking on high school renewal with lots of chaos. It feels like the start of the universe when everything is a mixture of choas and things have not yet started to solidify. I hope I can bring my international network to bear. I am excited to learn about the cool things that schools are already doing and curious to explore next steps. I think there is lot of potential with students being able to receive credits outside the school and the idea of mini-courses. Maybe now, kids can get credit for things like Current Generation.

The cover just arrived for the book, Crushing ICE, in which I have a chapter. It is the 3rd chapter in 3 years.

Jan 2023 In Press Curiosity and Creativity for the 4th. Industrial Revolution chapter by Ian Fogarty in Crushing ICE by Blaine Hartt, Friesen Press

U Waterloo published this article about the virtual and F2F collaboration between RHS and LASG.

https://uwaterloo.ca/news/environment/integrative-teaching-high-school

We were featured in both English and French in the Winter Brilliant Labs Newsletter.