Cozies 4 Chemo - Our Lady of Good Counsel

28 | The Good Counsel Courier Vol. 4 | Issue 3 | June 21, 2012www.olgcnj.org5B students show off their rocket building displays.The 5th Grade Imagines MarsBy Danny DiSandroMrs. Steel’s 5th Grade Social Studies class recently learned about theplanet Mars through a project called “Imagine Mars”. The students usedtheir creative skills to make everyday living necessities compatible withthe hardships of life on Mars. It’s all a part of a NASA initiative to colonizeMars with 100 people by the year 2030.Working in groups, each was assigned a different job. The studentswere separated into “Mission Specialist Teams” with each teamresponsible for various aspects of life. These were: Food and Shelter,Rocket Building and Transportation, Gravity and Weather, Oxygen andWater, Employment and Community, and Culture and the Arts. They madehouses, rockets, shopping centers, and even weather machines! They alsomade posters telling more about Mars and their creations. Each team thenpresented their posters and creations in front of the class. All the studentsthoroughly enjoyed this in-school project. Altogether, the students’creations would make a perfect colony on Mars.5A girls show off the beginning stages of their project.5B students display their finished project.5th graders find the light of God in a Religious Tolerance lessonBy Marissa CoffieldMrs. Steel’s 5th grade religion studentsrecently learned how to respect other people’sfaiths in a Religious Tolerance lesson. Thestudents were each assigned a different worldreligion to research. The assignment was forthem to explain the differences between us,Catholics, and the religion we were assigned.The religions were Quaker, Islam, Baptist,Roman Catholic (which we are), Methodist,Jehovah’s Witness, Judaism, Buddhism,Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian, andHinduism. They were then supposed to printout the symbols of the religion and paste themon a small lampshade. The lesson followed thetheme that “Religion is like a lampshade, theyare all different, but they all have the same lightof God in them.”For this lesson we discovered, for example,that instead of going to church, the Quakershave meetings everyday in a special place ofworship called a Meeting House and whenthey need to say something they just stand upand talk. They, like us, also believe God canbe found in every person, place, and thing.We also found out that Hindus believe inreincarnation and something called karma, but5th graders light up their lampshade as theypresent their facts on their world religions.like us, they have sacraments called Samskaras.Instead of believing that Jesus is the son of God,people from the Judaism faith, believe that Jesuswas a prophet and that they are still waiting forthe Messiah. However, like us, they do believein one God. The lesson helped us understandthe importance of respecting other people’sfaiths even though they may be different fromout own. Although we have different beliefs, weall have the same light of God within us. If youthink about it we’re not very different at all.