New Elective: 20th Century Literature and Art

Coming from a former Holocaust literature  student, “Holocaust Lit wasn’t so much a ‘fun’ class as it was eye opening, and I’m hoping this year, the students of 20th century literature will have the same experience.”  20th Century Literature is a new, year long elective course offered this year.  Miss Branderhorst, the teacher for this course, explained, “We aren’t just focusing on the Holocaust, but all of the significant changes that take place during the 20th century—all the changes that mirror or impact our lives today.”  20th Century Lit students will be learning through a variety of media - art, music, theatre, photography, and literature.  Together, the class will attend a play, view a photography exhibit, and will have at least 3 Holocaust survivors coming to speak with them.  They also have some art projects that they will be incorporating into their units.

-- Tom Gall

CCHS Committees and Clubs

With a new school year, comes a new list of Tuesday afternoon clubs.  The Investment Committee has been passed for a second year with Tom Gall as president, Jacob Koehler as secretary, and Nathan Kanis as Vicar; together, they hope to have a self-developed and profitable portfolio.  A new art club has been created, focusing on individual and collective art projects; this group will be headed by Nathaniel Koppendrayer and Lydia TerHaar.   Intramurals have moved from Thursday to Tuesday and will now be led by Jacob Bursaw as president. Finally, Ping Pong will continue for a 4th straight year headed by the Bartz brothers.  Clubs and committees are great opportunities for students to explore different interests and interact in a different way.

-- Tom Gall

Shingle Creek: Environmental Studies

For CCHS’s Environmental Science course, Mr. VandeGlind took the seniors to Shingle Creek on Tuesday to do some river observation. After climbing into waders before going into the up-to-waist-high water, the students were asked to measure and observe multiple things. They measured the velocity of the water, as well as sampled the river bottom and caught some macroinvertebrates. This information will be collected and sent to Fortin Consulting to help them to determine the health of the stream. Among the other random things caught were crayfish, a bullhead, and what Will Hendrickson and Austin Bartz described as a “really cool scorpion fish” that Austin accidentally let go. Next week, the class will be examining the tiny macroinvertebrates that were caught to determine the density and diversity of the respective species. This is just another way that the Environmental Science class is learning to take care of the creation that God has given to us.

-- Nathan Bonnema

Experiential Learning: Giving Back

Every junior that comes through Calvin Christian High School has to do an experiential learning project, which normally consists of a volunteering opportunity and a final product (often a presentation of some sort). These often include volunteering opportunities such as Feed My Starving Children, Second Harvest and Prism (the latter two are food shelves). This year, we have something even more unique. Claire Stephens, a junior, is volunteering at Children’s Hospital where she is visiting patients in their rooms and bringing them to their playrooms. This experience is especially unique to Claire because she was once a patient at Children’s Hospital. In Claire’s words, “When I was 8 years old, it was discovered that I had a brain tumor, so I had that removed at Children’s Hospital...  I was a patient there for 1 and ½ to two months.”  She continued, “I chose to volunteer at Children’s Hospital because I had a lot of volunteers come and visit me while I was a patient and I meant a lot to me, so I wanted to be able to give back to the hospital... I decided that I would go visit with the patients.” As for her final product, Claire is not sure, but she wants to combine an interview with the volunteer coordinator there with some journals that she will have written throughout her visits.This project is further proof that learning outside of the classroom is a worthwhile, impactful experience.

-- Nathan Bonnema

Introduction to Engineering Course

Introduction to Engineering is a new elective opposite choir that focuses on giving the students an introduction to the field of engineering through a series of videos that focus on the basics of engineering, as well as through a computer program that allows you to engineer an object, designing your own engineering project. Mr Ahrenholz, the math teacher, is teaching the class. He says that his goals for the class are “to allow students to explore a career path to engineering, to see if it is something that fits their skills or interests.” He plans to meet this goal by having the students watch the  Duke University Introduction to Engineering seminars, and allowing students to create their own engineering projects in the Solidworks engineering program. Introduction is a new, unique class, and hopefully together, students will begin to grasp this complicated field.

-- Ian Krueger

CCHS: Student Council Corner

Hi everyone and welcome to the first edition of the Student Council Corner! We are excited about what’s in store for this year and we hope you are too! We have been planning out the events for the year starting with the annual leaf raking in the local community on the afternoon of October 26th. Everyone will be asked to bring a rake and we will be split into groups. From there we will either take the bus or walk to our assigned places and do whatever leaf raking is needed. This is a good way to make our school known throughout the local community, and is also a way for our school as a whole to show God’s love by aiding those who can’t rake their leaves themselves.

           In addition, we encourage all of you to come out to the final volleyball and soccer games as they head into their respective playoff games.

-- Nathan Bonnema

CCHS Girl's Volleyball

The CCHS Girls Volleyball team has seen their fair share of victories and defeats as the seasons came and gone.  This year, the girls welcome new head coach, Tim Davis,who has offered a kind of fresh twist for the team and giving them a new vibe. Team captains, Maddie Vande Kamp and Claire Stephens have done their part as much as they could on the court. Maddie, recovering from a knee injury, has given the team encouragement from the sidelines until she was able to step back onto the court once more and is now back on the court to play with her team for the remainder of the season. One of the biggest accomplishments from the team that Maddie observed includes: "playing at a new level, with a new coach, and functioning as a team." The girls next few games will be at home with the encouragement of fans, and a few away with the encouragement of the Cougar Soccer team urging them on in victory.




-- Andrew Thomas