Quest is a KPBSD curriculum for gifted students. The Seward Elementary Quest Program is a unique pullout class for 18-22 or approximately 4% of students grades 3-6. Students are identified for testing by a multi-disciplinary team. Each student takes tests that are scored by four different persons. The tests include Renzulli motivational and learning characteristics, Williams Creativity, Woodcock-Johnson Achievement and/or CAT and WISC-III (IQ test).
Students in the third grade are introduced to Quest with activities involving technology such as e-mail and Internet. Fourth grade students work on enrichment in the area of science and social studies. Projects might include constructing a hyperstudio program on Alaskan fauna or doing a computer drawing of a futuristic house.
Quest stresses higher level thinking skills. Fifth grade Quest involves literature and reading. During the year students will read in the Junior Great Books series. Class discussions involve analysis and synthesis. Students are also introduced to a foreign language which is incorporated in a thematic unit. They will concentrate on one foreign language in their three years of upper elementary.
Sixth grade Quest involves mathematics and science. Students also participate in units on Shakespeare, Future Problem Solving, Stock Market, Mind A'mazes, Foreign Language and Knowledge Master. All students have Internet accounts and are issued e-mail address. Thus they have a chance to communicate with keypals from throughout the district, state, country and world. Sixth grade projects have included: painting a mural for the new Alaska SeaLife Center, wildlife surveys, planting willows for Salmon stream restoration and producing a film on the salmon life cycle.
The other half of the Seward Quest position involves the small schools of Hope and Moose Pass in the Eastern Kenai Peninsula. Computers and modems were installed at these three schools so that Quest students there could communicate on a daily basis with Seward Quest. The Quest teacher travels to these sites to work with students. The program involves language enrichment (French, Spanish, Italian or German) as well as computer technology. Students at these sites can now readily and economically communicate with teachers, students or administrators at other sites. Now a team in Mind A'mazes can involve students at several schools that communicate via e-mail and then participate as a team when they meet for the first time at a competition.