The TOPS Program, located at Marc Garneau C.I. (Toronto, ON), is a special high school program for students interested in enrichment in the maths, sciences, and language arts. TOPS offers a strong leadership program and encourages students to reach their utmost ability.
The grade 10 math class began their unit on imaginary numbers this week. They performed calculations involving imaginary numbers and learned about the implications of imaginary numbers in the graphs of functions. Next, they will begin studying graphing on an imaginary plane.
The grade 9 science class worked with microscopes. After learning about the structure of a cell, they took swabs of their own cheek cells and observed them under a microscope. The students drew diagrams of the cells and observed many characteristics of the cells, such as the effects of the visible bacterium and the size of the cells.
A representative from Elections Canada, Zoe Flatman, visited the grade 9 geography class. Guided by the representative, the students compared and contrasted different electoral communities and discussed possible explanations for various statistics such as population density, voter turnout, and average voter age.
This week, the Kindness Cafe held by Undercover Kindness Garneau took place at lunch in the cafeteria. Students dropped by to write down compliments or submit nice comments into an anonymous forum. The event, which featured various snacks and treats, was an overall success.
Amongst the many sports teams at Marc Garneau, the swim team is very popular with TOPS students. Various members from all grades join to learn new strokes, improve their swimming technique, or just to exercise. Throughout the year, multiple swim meets are held, culminating in a regional meet that will allow competitors to qualify for the provincial competition.
The grade 10 ICS students created programs which depicted rockets blasting off into space. They learned how to import backgrounds, graphics, and audio files into their code to enhance their programs. In the next few weeks, they will begin learning about the advantages of using arrays to manage data sets.
