Richard Olsen's Classes

In Richard's high school Language Arts class the students are completing their reading of the book, "The White Dawn" by James Houston. It is an Eskimo saga which tells a story about the first contact with western civilization in N.E. Canada.

His group of junior high students are reading short stories in Language Arts. They just completed "Dog Song," a story about an Eskimo boy who is tested by a bad storm and learns to trust his dog team to take him back to his village.

In Wood Shop, the high school students are working on individual projects. The junior high students have been carving spoons.

Nick's high school students are learning the Yup'ik names of the settlements in the Southwest Alaska Region. These include the villages of the Yukon River from Anvik to Alakanak, the coastal villages from Unalakleet to Kongiganak, the Kuskokwim River villages, the villages on the "Tundra," and those in the Bristol Bay area.

They also made a plan of a new village called "Nuuksuk." They first drew a map and showed how the village would look, then they discussed the kinds of rules they would have in the village.

The other subjects covered this quarter were: types of clothing, animals we trap, and tools. The students first learned the Yup'ik names of the objects, then used the vocabulary in sentences. They also did activities pertaining to basic listening, speaking, reading and writing in Yup'ik.

The class also went out fishing for fall chum and cohos for the school lunch program. The students enjoyed fishing with Vernon Evan, Nick Duny, Victor Shorty and myself. They went on two fishing trips, then put the fish in the walkin freezer.

Nick's elementary students are working on a Yupik clothing unit and other units that are the same as the high school.

Guy Sandlin is a grade 7-12 teacher. He teaches three math classes, science, human biology and health, and a geography class.

His three math classes are 7th grade arithmetic, 8th grade arithmetic, and pre-algebra. The 7th grade students are learning to write numbers in scientific notation and to convert them back to standard form. The 8th graders are learning about rounding off numbers and using rounded numbers to do mental math in everyday-type situations. The pre-algebra class (high school students) is studying decimal expressions both in arithmetic and algebraic settings.

Guy's science class, which is made up of the 7th and 8th grade students, is studying tectonic plates and the theory of continental drift.

The human biology and health class, which is made up of high school students, is learning about social health. They are presently studying how to be a good friend and how to establish lasting and productive friendships.

The 7th and 8th grade geography class is producing "pictures" of four scenes observed in the village. They are reproducing, from memory, the scene and a discription of the areas. They are also observing how it relates to other parts of the village as far as infastructure, topography and economy are concerned.