This is a summary list of the Enrichment Seminars that will be offered this year.  Students have the opportunity to show interest in any of the seminars.

Actors Guild

The Actors Guild Enrichment Seminar will be working towards a presentation at the counties Shakespeare Festival in May.  Students will be exposed to many works of William Shakespeare and get to explore different ways to interpret and perform his plays.  This will offer students the opportunity to perform and interact with other students to find the best way to creatively present a script. 

Book Club:

The Middle School Book Club, organized and led by advanced-level readers, is an intellectual collaboration where passionate readers engage in meaningful discussions of a literary work, strengthen critical reading and leadership skills, hear insightful peer perspectives, and have fun.

The Middle School Book Club is actually composed of two related activities: 1) The school-based Middle School Book Club and 2) the countywide Middle School Book Club.

Debate:

The Debate Instructional Seminar motivates a group of students to engage in meaningful, persuasive discourse about contemporary issues, thereby strengthening their leadership, critical thinking, and presentation skills.  Students use research skills to develop logical arguments supported with evidence to be applied to debates following a prescribed format.  In addition, the Debate Instructional Seminar prepares participating students for high school, and potentially collegiate, Debate Teams in later years.

Green Team:

The Green Team Enrichment Seminar group will continue our goal to make Lake Elkhorn a more “green” school.  We will continue to collect the recycle bins from the classrooms, work to educate the students and community about recycling and work to make sure we are recycling as much from the lunch room as possible. We will also continue our work with the PepsiCo Recylcing initiative, a national program that tracks our collection of aluminum cans and plastic bottles.

Movie Making:

The Movie Making Enrichment Seminar group will work to learn the art of creating well made entertaining movies.  The focus this year will be to learn different skills that will enhance the movies that we create.  Students will work to create movies using the new techniques they learn.  Students will work in groups to create movies that meet specific guidelines, that are being emphasized for the production.

Mystery Club

The Mystery Club Enrichment Seminar group will be working with many types of mysteries to further develop their creative problem solving skills. Students will explore many types of puzzles, mysteries and mystery solving situations to help them process information to help find solutions. Then students will participate in roll playing situations that work with mysteries.  The year will end with the creating of our own roll plays to present to an audience.

Robotics:

The Robotics Enrichment Seminar group will be working to learn how to effectively program Lego Mindstorm Robots.  The students will have to work in collaborative groups to program robots to do specific tasks.  The complexity of the tasks will continue to get more complicated as the year progresses.  The hope is that the students will be able to program the robots to complete multistep tasks by the end of the year.

Science Olympiad

The Maryland Science Olympiad is a "hands-on" K-12 science program including rigorous academic interscholastic tournaments. Scientists and engineers from Maryland corporations, organizations, and universities collaborate with K-12 science teachers to oversee the 24 teamwork oriented tournament events. Tournament events are well-balanced between life science, earth & space science, chemistry, physics, technology, and inquiry. Competitive opportunities include Invitational, Regional, and State tournaments.  

Television Production:

As members of the television production team, students create a daily, live television broadcast utilizing highly developed skills in journalism and technology. Anchors emulate professional public speakers as they develop skills in clarity, enunciation, poise, eye contact, and vocal expression.  Crewmembers utilize technology, such as cameras, mixers, soundboards, and computers, to maximize the effectiveness of the broadcast for a student audience.

Web Design / School News

The Web Design Enrichment Seminar will be a small group of students who will help work on the school’s web site.  The goal will be for the students to help update the site with current information and photographs of school activities.  Students will also work with community and other news, but the focus will be on happening here at our fine school.  This is a seminar that will have a selection process and not all students will be guaranteed the opportunity to participate.

Youth Fisheries Sciences

In the YFS, you can fish / learn to fish, and partake in amazing projects to benefit our aquatic ecosystems.  Explore Maryland’s underwater world and visit the hotspots of fisheries conservation.  Fish for rare species in some of Maryland’s most remote places Raise and breed endangered native fishes.  Exercise leadership and elect officers to run your YFS chapter.