Jewish Day School - Chabad Hebrew Academy

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Self Sustaining Eco-System/Kibbutz wins Awards

CHA students alone designed, built and installed an Aquaponics Garden Greenhouse, nearby soil beds and a vermicomposter during the beginning of our school year. Each grade planted their own plot in the greenhouse and outside to advance research on the effect of climate, soil and nutrients and the issues that pests pose for the growing process. Students compared and analyzed various methods of growing to find optimal pH balance in this revolutionary combined ecosystem, including a tilapia warm water fish farm and a hydroponics growing system. Together the gravel garden filters the fish farm water and thereby gains nutrients from the fish waste. The goal is to develop a self-sustaining system to feed a replenishing diet of fish and vegetables to an entire drought ridden African village in three month cycles. Bill Toone of the EcoLife foundation has provided guidance and assistance. This program is integrated cross-curricularly with the Hebrew Language department. Through the hard work of building and pioneering this effort, students relive the pioneering spirit of the early Kibbutz movement in Israel. They have named the area, Kibbutz Agadah after Theodor Herzel’s statement “Im Tirtzu ein zu agadah – If you will it is not a dream.” Students see themselves as pioneering scientists who are breaking scientific barriers of the future.

Seminar Science at CHA
NASA’s Mars Student Imaging Project (MSIP)

"A learning opportunity like this doesn't usually present itself until Graduate School", remarked CHA parent, Orin Green
Our Science Seminar Class participated in NASA’s Mars Student Imaging Project (MSIP) and was selected as a national winner to have their Mars proposal imaged and brought into the current base of scientific knowledge of Mars and now available to all researchers. This was an incredible opportunity for our students. They wrote proposals to have the

“Themis” high resolution camera on board the Mars Odyssey Orbiter take a series of close up images of the southern pole region of Mars which was currently experiencing “southern spring”. Specifically, they selected to target an area of dark spots suspected to be formed by sand geysers due to the carbon dioxide in the ice cap sublimating resulting in sand being distributed on the surface. After being selected students spent a week at the Arizona State University working with the Themis researchers and controllers. They took a series of photos of the same target over a period of 3 days, to see if they could determine a pattern to their eruptions and/or location.

Our students collected and graphed their data and determined that there appeared to be a slight trend toward earlier eruptions each year. They created their own PowerPoint presentation about their process of investigation and presented their findings to the world renowned experts in this field currently researching Martian geysers.

Finally, they were quizzed by the scientific panel about their presentation. The whole process lead to new questions with the possibility of new research being done. Our students did an amazing job and put together a final report that they sent to ASU.

CHA National Winners in Kids in Micro g

Students from all over the nation entered Nasa’s “Kids in Micro-g Design Challenge”. They were given a list of items available on the International Space Station for student experimentation. Their goal was to design a physical experiment using only equipment from the list. The results of the experiment should show observable differences between performing the experiment on Earth in normal gravity, and performing it aboard the International Space Station in micro-gravity.
Out of all the National applicants, Shayna S and Rachel E’s experiment, “Attracting Water Droplets” was selected as the Winner. Their goal was to see if putting statically charged rubber tubing near a free floating water droplet would attract the droplet like it does while it is falling to Earth in normal gravity. They thought that it could possibly be helpful in collecting “escaping” water droplets which could damage sensitive equipment. The review team said in a web-conference with Shayna and Rachel that they were very impressed with their experiment and were excited to see it performed in space.

To Astronauts Cady Coleman Ron Garan's amazement, as they released the spheres of water, they began to orbit around the hose. With each orbit the drops spiraled in closer and closer to the hose. As the drops moved closer, they also accelerated faster and faster until finally, they impacted the hose. They were fascinated to see these little static electricity induced solar systems in action.

Star Lab Planetarium Brought to CHA

Click on Image to Learn more About the StarLab!
All students had an opportunity to engage in a one of a kind planetarium experience this year at CHA. The Star Lab was set up in the auditorium and gave students of all ages a chance to explore the stars from inside the huge inflatable Star Lab. It allowed our students to be able to locate important stars, navigate and tell time using them and to reinforce our classroom study of astronomy, biology and earth sciences while looking at the real thing. Bringing education to life.

School-Wide Family Forensics Night

Students spent many weeks learning about forensic science and completed labs in hair and fingerprint analysis and footprint and powder analysis so that they could prepare to solve the crime of the stolen rabbit.

Students used our high powered microscopes to complete their and each scientist carefully documented their results for each suspect. The stage was set with a wet, unreadable note, written with black marker that was found on the table on which the rabbit cage had been sitting.

On top of the note was an empty glass which had spilled it's contents all over the note. On the floor nearby, was a fine film of an unknown white substance.

Several footprints leading both to and away from the table were found in the white powder. Some black fur, a few strands of hair, and some unknown fibers were found near the scene, but the rest of the room appeared to be undisturbed. Each student brought their parents to our school and together they worked to solve the case and present their findings.