Olympia High School

OHS Science students implementing a Covid-safe hands-on experiment in order to determine the meaning of slope. Awesome work!

Wikipedia.org is where millions of people stop first for information. Tools like it are what make the internet so valuable. But they also teach an important lesson, one you can start teaching your kids now: don’t believe everything you read. Family Tip Sheet: bit.ly/OlyNMFR2

Website Update: The sites are now up and running! If you experience a warning page when navigating to your building's site, you can safely proceed past it. That issue will also be resolved soon. Thank you for your patience and we hope you find the new site beneficial!

Website down @ 12:00 PM. We are doing a visual refresh of our website at noon today. There will be some downtime, but we should be up and running before long! If you would like a sneak peak and a tour of the new layout, checkout this video: https://youtu.be/FTG2kREb3Cw

Fearless Fact Finding! Check out this list of trustworthy resources to help you learn what's true (and what is not!) on the web. You can even use one of them to look back in time and what was on a website in the past!

Happy Holidays from the OHMS Band Department. You will find a link below that takes you to a short virtual concert of some Christmas carols to get us into the holiday season. Wishing you a happy, and safe, Christmas! https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLavxSqyAqH8fKLJstnIv_oJfpRzb7PaRo

Fake News & Media Messages Tip #5: Choose a Variety of Sources. Show your children how you get news and information from different places, and explain how you make your choices. Use words like "credible," "trustworthy," "respected," and "fair." Ask them where they get their information, and if they think about those same words when choosing. As kids get older, introduce the ideas of bias, satire, and clickbait.

If a picture's worth a thousand words, do the words always tell a true story? One way to find out is through a reverse image search. Search with an image instead of a keyword and see what you discover!

Fake News & Media Messages Tip #4: Play "Should You Share?" Talk through the kind of content you and your tween or teen pass along to friends online. What types of things do you like to share? Do you always check to make sure something is true before you share it? How do emotions factor into your decisions to share things? Have you ever shared something and later found out it wasn't true?

Fake News & Media Messages Tip #3: Explore Different Sides of a Story! Use real-life examples to help kids understand how people can view the same situation with totally different perspectives. One child might experience a game on the playground as fun, while another might feel like the rules are unfair. Sibling conflict can be a great example of how two people can have wildly different opinions about the same event. With older children, talk through controversial subjects and take turns arguing for different sides to help kids understand various viewpoints.

Thank you to everyone that participated in the 1st annual Spartan Selfie Elfie Scavenger Hunt. Our winners were Natalie Cahill and Lauren Guttschow. They each won their school's coveted golden trophy, an Amazon gift card, and holiday bragging rights for the next 364 days!

Fake news is nothing new. Check out this timeline to learn about some ways it has been utilized throughout history to influence society. Ask your family about other examples that you know of and why they were used!

Fake News & Media Messages Tip #2: Play "Spot The Ad" When you see advertising on TV or on a billboard, ask your children to figure out what the ad is selling. Sometimes it's obvious, and sometimes it's not. Help them explore why certain pictures, sounds, or words are used to sell certain products.

Learning anatomy and physiology through pig dissection!

Filter Bubble Trouble! When we get news from our social media feeds, it often only tells us part of the story. Our friends -- and the website's algorithms -- tend to feed us perspectives we already agree with. Show students ways to escape the filter bubble and make sure their ideas about the world are being challenged. https://youtu.be/mh1dLvGe06Y - BBC

Fake News & Media Messages Tip #1: Encourage Healthy Skepticism Help your children analyze the messages around them -- from toy packaging to Instagram posts to news headlines -- and question the purpose of the words and images they see. Teach kids how to use fact-checking tools like Snopes and FactCheck.org.

Video: bit.ly/OlyNMV2 All media comes with an author and an agenda. Help kids think critically about any media they view with critical questions that dig below the surface. And to really empower kids, have them create their own media with these same questions in mind.

Thank you Mr. Jones and Mrs. Litwiller for bringing the OHMS staff a little holiday treat - Grinch style! Much appreciated!

With so much media and information coming at us through the television, phones, social media, and more, it's more important than ever for kids to understand the basics of media literacy. When kids can identify different types of news and media and the methods and meanings behind them, they're on their way to being critical thinkers and smart consumers. Throughout the month, we will be sharing a set of five tips to help your children become critical thinkers of news and media. Here is a short video to get those conversations started! bit.ly/OlyNMV5

Make sure to check out your Skyward Family Access Wall for the updated return to learn metrics and a letter from Dr. O'Donnell.