Events
Hollywood – Fall Dance 2021
The “Hollywood” Fall Dance was a huge success and even began with a beautiful sunset. After walking the red carpet, our Hollywood stars danced the night away. The “Cha Cha Slide” never looked so good! The dance committee did a wonderful job of planning and executing the evening. A wonderful time was had by all. […]
Halloween 2021
After an amazing week of school spirit fun with a new “dress code” each day, we finished it off by throwing a Halloween Party Bash! Students played games and raced each other to earn raffle tickets for their choice of prizes. They also brought items to donate to Angels of Assisi.
Spirit Week
Our students themed it up during Spirit Week with dress up days to include Decades Day, Pajama Day, Dress like a CHS teacher, Heroes and Villains Day, and finally Halloween Costumes day! We celebrated the end of Spirit Week with a Halloween bash out in the yard.
Senior Retreat 2021
Our senior class retreat this fall was at Hollins University. As always, it provided a clear and dedicated time and space away from family, work, and the classroom to tackle the college application process. This two day how-to experience helped the students with every aspect of the college application journey. It not only focused on the importance of writing […]
News
Solar Panel Study
Students in the Roanoke Field Studies class visited Roanoke Catholic School to visit their solar panel arrays. After returning to school, they went up to the roof to see if the CHS roof would be suitable for solar panels.
Speed of Light
Physics students were treated to a sweet experiment. They carefully began to melt chocolate bars in microwaves to calculate the speed of light using the distance between the melted spots and the frequency of the microwave.
Harrison Museum Class Trip
For Spring Lycée Day, Stephanie, Ryan, and Warren organized a full-school trip to The Harrison Museum of African American Cultures, Inc. (HMAAC) in downtown Roanoke. The HMAAC is a cultural and educational institution committed to advocating, showcasing, preserving and celebrating the art and history of African Americans for Roanoke Valley citizens and visitors. Museum administrators […]
The Kuleshov Effect
Students in Film History: Sci-Fi Cinema replicated the Kuleshov Effect, an editing experiment developed by Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the early 20th century. In the absence of an establishing shot, early film viewers assumed that two-shot sequences, in isolation, were linked in space, time, and motivation. This is the so-called Kuleshov Effect. Does Xan […]
Video Game Design History at the Roanoke STARCADE
Students taking the Video Game Design class took advantage of the Roanoke STARCADE to gain a hands on understanding of the history of video games, and get some inspiration to the video games we are making. Plus a little air hockey never hurt anyone either, right?
Roller Coaster Mathematics
While the French students were visiting, the Algebra 2 and Calculus classes collaborated to build a roller coaster. They used butcher paper to measure the x and y axes. The whiteboard shows the piecewise function they wrote along with the graph approximating the form of the coaster.
Le Voyage dans la Lune
Students in Film History: Sci-Fi Cinema retold the story of Georges Méliès’ Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902) in the “cine-roman” style of Chris Marker’s short film La Jetée (1962).
Stella is Spending a Semester in Maine at Chewonki
Stella L took a break from the traditional classroom setting to experience a Maine Coast Semester at Chewonki! This hands-on, experiential learning environment included backcountry adventures, science field labs, and daily opportunities to learn about sustainable living. Here is a blog Stella wrote about her experience with An Ex-STREAM-ly Fun Field Lab: When I first […]
Experimenting with a Photo-Novel
Students in Film History: Sci-Fi Cinema experimented with different camera orientations in a B&W “photo-novel” inspired by Chris Marker’s short film La Jetée (1962).
Giulia Spends the Whole Year With Us
Giulia came to us from Ferentino, Italy as a one semester exchange student, but she ended up staying for the whole year! She was a very active participant in our community, playing in our band, Desmond, and performed in our two school plays for the year, “100 Dresses” and “Almost, Maine“.
Video Game Designing with Finn Tanguay (’17)
Finn Tanguay graduated from CHS in 2017, and immediately went into the independent Video Game Development industry. So far, Finn has released three games to acclaim and has an obsessive cult following! He’s back in the classroom but this time he’s assistant teaching the students in Bethany’s Video Game Design class. Outside of games, Finn […]
Primate Anatomy
As part of learning about primate anatomy in the Human Origins class, students attempted walking on their knuckles like gorillas, hanging from one arm like gibbons, walking on their palms like baboons, squatting like monkeys, and walking bipedally like chimps.