Pandemic Week 34: An Election and Back to School (a bit)

Week 34 of the pandemic was historic. First, the number of positive COVID cases hit record levels for several days. Second was the conclusion (eventually) of the Presidential election. Finally,it was
Anna's first week of in-person classes. Let't start with classes, which is actually only one day. Anna is in a pilot group for her high school. She happens to be in a "cross curricular cohort." This is an optional program in which your english, biology, and history class are all complimentary to each other. For example, Anna was studying Mesopotamia in history and had a biology project that looked at enzympes present in the mesopotamian diet (there was also a related writing assignment for english). The classes are project based rather than traditional test based. Anna has the same group of students in each class, which means it is easy for the school to pilot. Anna will be going on Wednesday, along with half her class and the other half of the cohort will go on Fridays. This week was the perfect week to start - the day after the election. She was treated to a lively post-election debate with her class (apparently one student is on the debate team) and lesson on the electoral college. She was thrilled to go and very disappointed that there will be no in-person class on Wednesday due to Veteran's Day. She is also getting out once a week for "dry land" swim conditioning at the football field (lots of ways to social distance). At least it is something! The weather was spectacular over the weekend. In between raking leaves and watching election results, we enjoyed a hike at Manassas Battle field on Saturday. Given all of the tensions surrounding the election, it was somehow appropriate to remember the Civil War and the ultimate cost of failing to reconcile opposing views. Sunday was Girl Scout day for Anna as she had another storm drain labeling project (the weather could not have been better) and a global action project on women's suffrage around the world. Perhaps the best summary

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