Ninth grader Brooke Caswell standing next to her poster about the north central African nation of Chad.

Jack Setzer
SJHS Staff Writer

Students in Mr. Rob Bentley’s ninth-grade geography classes have been working on presentations about specific countries in Africa. They do the presentations because, according to Mr. Bentley, there isn’t enough time to talk about all 53 countries in Africa. Students had two weeks to work on the presentations, and they presented their reports on Monday, December 14. Before making their reports, they did two class periods of research on Africa.

Students did different things for their presentations. “I’ll probably get a poster, and some pictures of different tribes, and their customs and cultures there,” said MacKenzie Morris, who is doing her presentation on Niger. According to Leksi Rosenberg, who is doing a report on Mali, she will most likely do a PowerPoint for her presentation.

According to Mr. Bentley, most students “seem to really enjoy” assignments like this one. MacKenzie said, “I like learning about Africa and everyone in it.”

Max Schreiner
SJHS Writer Staff

Students are working hard in Mrs. Rebecca Murdock’s Geography class trying to get their country projects done. These projects will be presented in class on October 28th or 29th. Right now the Geography class is doing a unit on the Middle East so each student was assigned a country from the Middle East. Mrs. Murdock, the Geography teacher, said “I expect each student’s best work. They have an option to choose which type of project they would like to do, so I expect that they’ll have fun while learning.”

“I’m doing Egypt because it’s the one I knew most about in this area,” said Katie Bair, a member of the class. She went on to say, “for my presentation I am going to dress my friends up like Egyptians and make them Egyptian food.”

Although the Middle East isn’t home to the most well know countries in the world, students are learning to make it work. Chelsea Ricks, a member of the geography class, said, “ I’m doing a country called Qutar, I hadn’t ever even heard of Qutar until I was assigned it as my country project, for my presentation I’m planning on making a recipe from Qutar.” This is an individual project, but some students have the same country, so they can work on a project together but turn in two separate projects.

Halley Rencher
SJHS Staff Writer

In Mr. Rob Bentley’s World Civilizations class, students were given two days to create a presentation on Asia and a few students got pretty creative. Ninth grader Caleb McClellan did a report on the culture of Taiwan.

“This was an important assignment because it introduced the students to Asia,” said Ms. Whiting, student teacher. “We feel it helped the students get excited for the Asia unit.”

What did Caleb do to make the class so excited? “He brought in a Chinese dragon,” said Ms. Seegmiller, another student teacher in Mr. Bentley’s class. A lot of students found the report was much more exciting to have it there.

“We had a lot of great presentations. Some students got really creative!” said Ms. Whiting.  Let’s hope these students do have fun in the Asia unit.

Madie Dockstader
SJHS Staff Writer

Ms. Kortni Seegmiller is currently a student teacher for Mr. Rob Bentley, geography teacher at Springville Junior High School.

Ms. Seegmiller wants to become a teacher because she wants to help teenagers realize how amazing the world and the people in it are. Ms. Seegmiller said “What could be better than hanging out with ninth graders all day and talking about the social sciences?”

Ms. Seegmiller is from Henderson, Nevada. She said, “It’s dry, hot, and brown, but it has really nice sunsets.” She is attending BYU and is taking some education classes, like Adolescent Development, Classroom Management, and Teaching students with disabilities.

Some interesting things about Ms. Seegmiller are she worked at the Bean Life Science Museum where she gave animal shows. She would get to show people snakes, lizards, frogs, tarantulas, turtles, and hissing cockroaches. She also speaks Spanish, and she likes to travel. She said “My dream vacation at the moment is Cuba.”

Madie Dockstader
SJHS Staff Writer

Ms. Kate Whiting is currently a student teacher for Mr. Rob Bentley, a geography teacher at Springville Junior High School. She loves learning, teaching geography, and she loves kids. Mr. Bentley said “I think Ms. Whiting will be an excellent teacher. She has great enthusiasm and interest in history and culture. She also has a positive attitude toward all students with a commitment to helping them learn and progress.”

Ms. Whiting grew up in a small beach town, in Hawaii, called Kailua. She went to Kailua High School, home of the Surfriders. She was involved in a student government class and almost every club Kailua High could offer.

Right now she is attending BYU. She is done with all her classes because she is student teaching right now, but her favorite classes at BYU were Floral Design, Art History, and International Political Economy. She said, “I am a little sad about graduation in April because I love being a student.”

Ms. Whiting served a mission in Taipei, Taiwan, where she learned to speak Mandarin Chinese. She studied it for three months and lived in Taiwan for a little over a year. Then she took a year of Mandarin Chinese at BYU. She has been to the world’s tallest building, Taipei 101, and also ate some of Taipei’s interesting foods.

Carolyn Brown
SJHS Staff Writer

This year the Springville Junior High School has gotten many new teachers, and one of them is Mr. Michael Chipman. He teaches U.S. History for the eighth graders. He teaches Geography first semester and World History the second semester for the ninth graders. “I love working with all of the kids. It is amazing to see how they can change and improve,” said Mr. Chipman.

The students that have him are very glad that they were able to be in his class. “He helps me to get better grades, and I really like that,” Afton Brown, one of his students, said. Another student, Rebekah McClain, said this about the way he teaches, “If any of the students have a question he talks with them personally, I think that is really cool.”

One of the most popular things that he does is a Current Events Day; every Tuesday he takes time away from normal class lessons, and he and the students have a discussion about the things that are going on in right now in the USA. Sometimes the students have to read a news article or watch a news program and write half a page on it, but most of the time they just discuss the event as a class. Since the class has been studying the Revolutionary War he sometimes has the students get in groups and do presentations on things like important people or major battles. “I like how he is able to make history fun and interesting for me,” said Rebekah McClain. As you can see, Mr. Chipman is a great addition to the faculty here at Springville Junior High School.