Students participating in hands-on learning

School Calendar

CICS ChicagoQuest typically has 192 instructional days in the school year. As a charter school, we create our own schedule. Please look closely at the calendar, as we do not observe some of the typical Chicago Public Schools holidays.

Download this year's calendar

May 3
We examined one-celled
organisms under a microscope today. We also looked at plant cells. Then we made sketches of the cells.

We learned about DNA, which is short for Deoxyribonucleic acid.

James D. Watson and Francis Crick with Maclyn McCarty*

Watson and Crick discovered the double helix structure of DNA. I googled them after school and learned that they were building on the work that other scientists had done before them. It changed the way I think about how scientists work.

*(Photo: Marjorie McCarty) Lederberg J, Gotschlich EC, 2005 A Path to Discovery: The Career of Maclyn McCarty. PLoS Biol 3(10): e341. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0030341

May 5
Today we put together models of DNA. Working with the models helped me to better understand the structure of DNA.

May 6
We've been asked by a team of game designers to provide information for a game that they are making about genetics! We learned how to use Punnett squares to understand the probability that offspring will have certain traits. I plugged in my parents' eye color and discovered that there was only a 25% chance that I would have green eyes - and I do! The odds were against me!

May 10
We have to write an introduction to the genetics game so that players have some background information before they start. I wrote about how the discovery of DNA has allowed today's scientists to be able to work on cures for specific diseases. This has been my favorite mission so far. I think I might be one of those scientists one day.