LTC 525-2018 Afterschool Enrichment - Fienberg Fisher K-8 Center and Biscayne Elementary MIAMIBEACH
OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER
NO. LTC # 525-2018 LETTER TO COMMISSION
To: Mayor Dan Gelber and Members df the City CO'mmission
From: Jimmy L. Morales, City Manager
Date: October 2, 2018
Subject: Afterschool Enrichment— Fienberg isher K-8 Center and Biscayne Elementary
The purpose of this Letter to Commission is to provide information on the status of the City's
Afterschool Enrichment Program at Fienberg Fisher K-8 Center and Biscayne Elementary. At
the April 11, 2018, Commission meeting, administration received direction to develop and
implement an afterschool enrichment program at public schools in Miami Beach with limited
access to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) activities beginning in
the 2018-19 school year.
Dr. Leslie Rosenfeld, Chief Learning Development Officer, engaged Florida International
University's School of Computing and Information Systems to develop a STEM enrichment
program for Miami Beach youth at the selected schools. Support from Feinberg Fisher
principal Maria Costa and Biscayne Elementary principal Karen Villalba-Belusic, ensured the
distribution of registration information within each school community to support awareness and
access.
Youth enrollment in our afterschool enrichment programs has exceeded expectations this
semester with 216 youth actively engaged: 130 Fienberg Fisher youth and 86 Biscayne
Elementary youth. Classes began the week of September 17th and will end the week of
December 17`h. Spring registration will begin in early November for a January 2019 start date.
Afterschool enrichment classes offered this semester at Fienberg-Fisher K-8 Center and
Biscayne Elementary includes the following:
• 3D Printing: Students will use 3D printing as a means to develop their spatial
visualization ability. Three types of printing to which students will be exposed are:
printing from a file, printing a robotics part, and printing a solid by revolving a 2D shape
about an axis. Design thinking will be explored to expose students to how engineers
define a problem, come up with solutions, and create and test prototypes. During the
printing of objects, students learn about measurement and scale.
• Unplugged Logic/Mathematics Games: Students will use playing cards, board games
and floor games for the development of computational and algebraic thinking. The
students will learn playing card tricks based on mathematics and will use playing cards
to learn efficient sorting algorithms. Some classic toys that will be used to also study
algorithms are: Tower of Hanoi, Rubik's Cube, Master Mind and Triangle Peg Solitaire.
Other puzzles, problems and games such as the Scramble Squares Puzzle, the
Syracuse Problem and the Broken Squares Game will be used.
• MIT Scratch: Students will be introduced to Scratch programming language by creating
an online Scratch account in which they will save games and projects. Students learn to
create games individually and follow project requirements in a group format. Several
higher level programming commands beyond variables, loops, conditionals and arrays
will be learned. Group projects will be based on a theme common to all class
participants. Gifs will be downloaded and converted into frames to animate characters
that interact with each other.
• Robotics: Students learn about the confluence of mechanics, electronics and
programming. Students learn to program user-controlled code and autonomous code in
two different manners, one of which stresses the importance of design thinking and
another that stresses task functionality. The students learn to design and order parts that
are 3D printed to complement the robotics equipment parts. Emphasis is given to
students learning to tell a story about the task their robots perform.
• Self-Portrait in JavaScript: Students use the Khan Academy online tools to develop
their computational identity. Students learn to code in JavaScript and create a self-
portrait to express who they are. They enhance their self-portraits by also using code to
create jewelry of various geometric shapes that show how the students see themselves
and as part of a group learning to code. After a shared class experience, students draw
representations of the experience and then abstract features of the drawings to create
icons, which eventually turn into symbols that represent the students' values.
• Virtual Reality: Students use cardboard headsets and instructors' cell phones to
experience educational virtual worlds to learn about different STEM disciplines such as
molecular biology, nanotechnology and neuroscience. At the end of the semester, there
will be a fieldtrip scheduled to visit FIU's I-CAVE, which provides a completely immersive
experience of a virtual space, and the capacity to explore new ideas, places or objects in
a dynamic and interactive visual environment. Students also will learn about architecture
and will use augmented reality apps for mobile devices to visualize 3D renderings of 2D
floor plans.
• How the Internet Works: Students learn about encryption and how data is represented
in bits and bytes, the foundation of how computers and the internet run. The class starts
with encoding an image and recreating the image from its binary code representation.
Students then draw and build with construction paper a model representing the
infrastructure necessary for the internet to run.
• Book Club (Fienberg only): Students will read a new novel every month, and
share/discuss what they have read, as well as complete activities related to the novel.
• Musical Theatre (Fienberg only): Students will be prepared in the field of musical
theatre with the goal of performing a holiday production in December.
• Garden Club (Fienberg only): Students will weed and mulch the existing garden beds,
plant new plants based on the growing cycle of South Florida, harvest the fruit and
vegetables produced, conduct tastings, and create recipes utilizing the Cuisinart and the
Vita Prep. In addition, they will harvest and provide fresh fruit and vegetables for use in
the cafeteria lunches, learn about different fruit and vegetables growing in the garden,
create mosaic titles to identify each of the plants in the garden, plant seeds to grow
seedlings which will be transplanted into the garden, plant seedlings, weed and mulch in
the garden, be provided a tasting and a lesson on the garden's plants, and learn to
determine which plants will prosper during the summer months.
• Chess Club (Fienberg only): Students will learn about chess tactics and strategies,
and notation. Students will also study opening, midgame, and endgame concepts,
engage in practice with each other, and engage in practice with more experienced
players. Students will also solve chess puzzles and analyze games.
We will continue to support our strategic outcome to achieve K-12 public school excellence
through our Education Compact. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Dr.
Leslie Rosenfeld.
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