Janine Zhu

My name is Janine, and I'm a 7th grader in IB Prep, STEM. In this class, I learned many subjects involving the AOI's (Areas of Interaction). We are currently working on an assignment about a famous mathematician. On some Mondays, Mr. Diaz, our IB Prep teacher, assigns us a short activity. He calls them "Make Stuff Mondays". We get to use our imagination and creativity to make very cool "stuff". In the past few months, we made "Baseball Bungees", "Sail Cars", "Pasta Bridges", and many other awesome things.

20% Projects are also pretty interesting! At the beginning of the year, he let us each choose a favorite subject or goal to study for the rest of the year and also next year in 8th grade. The topic that I chose was Birds. As (almost) everyone knows, I LOVE birds. 20% projects help me learn more about the subject that I am interested in with a greater depth.

IB Prep is a very interesting class to be in. It combines science, technology, engineering, and math together to create a whole new subject.I can learn about many things, and at the same time be creative and build. So far this year, my class built tons of amazing creations, such as the Rube Goldberg simple machine. The objective was to create a complex machine so that it can knock down a ping-pong from its "perch". Over all, this class is one of my favorites.