School news
9th graders cultivate empathy and understanding through food insecurity project
Written by 9th graders Aven Westbrook, Kasia Sluka, Sawyer Brown, and Charlie Bordeauxl
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Over the past few weeks, Woodstock Union High School freshmen have been researching and learning about food insecurity in Vermont. Along the way, we have been given many opportunities to listen to guest speakers, partake in discussions, do hands-on activities, and go on field trips. This unit was designed to inform and help us act upon the problem of food insecurity, not only in our close community, but in the whole state of Vermont.
Starting in Modern World History class, we learned about root causes of food insecurity globally. After a few classes, we started to dive deeper into the cost of living in Vermont and how that may affect food security. First, teachers wanted to bring awareness to the subject on a global scale. In the class called ‘Modern World History’, we followed a walk around activity with posters full of data from 10 different countries. We were asked to record the total food cost and how many people were in each family. This helped us get a larger scale idea of everything before zooming in to Vermont. In our Wellness class, we started our discussion by investigating daily nutrition needs, which led to the effects of poor nutrition. From here, we discussed solutions.
Molly Fielder ‘29 and Charlie Davis ‘29 work together to prepare soup
Two representatives from Hunger Free Vermont joined us to present about programs like SNAP and more local branches of it, like Hunger Free Vermont and 3 Squares VT. This presentation provided statistics about the amount of hunger being faced in our small state. They were open to clarifying questions as well as deeper discussion questions, which gave my peers and us a new understanding of this growing problem.
The next step of this unit was action. Our goal was to help support people who are food insecure in their community. In our Wellness class, we learned about the different food groups and how people don’t always have access to them, which is also a way of being food insecure. Afterwards, we were prompted to create a shopping list with a required number of items in each food group and a budget of $75 (the same amount as weekly SNAP benefits for a qualifying family of 2). We made and printed out lists and were ready for the next step. To help us better understand the topic, our teachers organized field trips so students could directly help the situation instead of watching from afar.
One portion of our field work took place at the Upper Valley CO-OP food store, where we were buying food and checking prices, how nutritious it was and if it was enough for the amount of people we were shopping for. All the groups did lots of math in this process and most groups stayed on budget; if you were over $75 you would work as a team to figure out what to put back. After buying our food, we got back on the bus and drove to the Upper Valley Haven where we donated a total of 247 pounds of food and got a tour of the operations and food market.
Meanwhile, at the Billings Farm and Museum, we learned about the history of farming and agriculture businesses, before competing in a light-hearted, 3 team quiz about making food like butter. Most pom-poms to win! We then broke off into cooking groups. In these groups we made butter, applesauce, and soup. We donated our hand-churned butter and carefully crafted applesauce to the Woodstock Community Food Shelf and our soup to the local Meals on Wheels program through the Thomson Senior Center.
Food insecurity is a huge problem in the United States and around the world. It can seem so out of reach to make a real impact, but even a small donation to the Haven or standing up for SNAP benefits can go a long way. This project made learning about a serious topic fun and engaging while still focusing on the big picture. We think it’s cool that every 9th grader gets to do this project. The 9th grade class was so glad that they could have such a positive impact on food insecurity and hopes that others feel inspired to engage in the topic and help people live longer, healthier lives.
Come support our amazing artists over break!
Agnes Kardashian
The Art Department would like to congratulate several WUHS artists for having their work represented at Lebanon, New Hampshire’s AVA Gallery in the upcoming annual High School Artist Show.
Congrats to the Woodstock Union student artists: Addie Tucker, Agnes Kardashian, Corrine White, Ella Lockhart, Marlena Farinas, Mimi Kanda-Olmstead, Milo Farrington, Priscilla Richardson, Schuyler Hagge and Willow Roberts
This is a high school invitational art show that represents many public and private high schools in our area. The art faculty nominates works by students who show exceptional promise in a variety of creative disciplines. The student work includes seven categories: Ceramics, Drawing, Multiple disciplines, Painting, Photography, Sculpture, and Wearable art. The awards will be chosen by Artist Mentor and Publisher of Art New England Rita Fucillo.
The Awards Ceremony and Opening Reception is Friday, Feb 27th, 5-7 p.m., and the show will be open until March 28th. Both the show and the ceremony are open to the public—the artwork tends to be AWESOME!
Ella Lockhart
Mimi Kanda-Olmstead
Schuyler Hagge
Marlena Farinas
Addy Tucker
Milo Farrington
Willow Roberts
Corrine White
Priscilla Richardson
Interact Club returns after multi-year hiatus
By Kaitlyn Burres
Interact Club President
This year the Interact Club run by Lori Adams and Kim Carey was able to re-form after a multi-year hiatus. Interact has been a club dedicated to giving to our community and our world. We are a club made up of freshmen through seniors with a strong connection to the Rotary. After a quick start up at the beginning of the year Interact jumped quickly into how we could give back to our community. We have been fortunate enough to be supported by the Rotary throughout this year as well as connect with an Interact Club in Thailand. As Interact gains more funds and strength we hope to give to those in need in Thailand and organize trips there as well. Interact is committed to selfless acts of kindness to all those who need it and will continue to carry this commitment out.
Interact Club chose to kick off our first year back by organizing a canned food drive for those affected by the removal of snap benefits. Interact did a one day drive and gained over $100 worth of donations as well as multiple bags full of canned goods.
Above is a photo of Kaitlyn Burres Speaking at the Rotarian’s Night of Giving as well as the letter sent from the Rotary Club inviting students to accept their generous donation
Although Interact has not been running for long Interact was able to accept a generous donation from Max Comins. Interact was invited to speak at the Rotarian’s Night of Giving and Kaitlyn Burres and Mimi Kanda-Olmstead said words to give their immense thanks to the Rotarians.
Interact members also went to the Reading Elementary School to decorate food donation boxes with the 1st through 4th graders. A large aspect of Interact is building up the community and ensuring kindness and selflessness throughout the younger generations. This was executed perfectly throughout a two hour window organized by Kim Carey. Both Interact members and the Reading Elementary school enjoyed this special event.
Currently, Interact is running a winter clothing drive. In the main lobby every day Interact members collect old winter items that students donate. Many people in the community are not able to afford the necessary items to keep warm this chilly winter. Interact plans to hand these articles of clothing out to those who need them the most.
Hunting for parabolas at Marsh Billings Rockefeller National Park
Algebra 2 students recently visited Marsh Billings Rockefeller National Park on snowshoes to look for parabolas in nature.
A parabola is the U-shaped curve that shows up when you graph a quadratic equation. Parabolas come up a lot in the real world: the path a ball takes when you throw it, the shape of a satellite dish, the curve of a suspension bridge cable. They're a useful tool for modeling how things move and behave.
The question students are exploring is whether parabolas actually appear in nature on their own. They hiked through the forest, took pictures of curves they found in branches, roots, and other natural shapes, and will bring those photos back to class to write equations and see how well the math holds up.
Thank you to Marsh Billings Rockefeller National Park and to Kat Robbins for supporting the trip.
IDEA program students take flight with polyhedral kite design
IDEA—Innovation, Design, Engineering, Action—is a project-based elective at Woodstock Union that challenges students to learn by doing, tackling real design and engineering problems with their hands and their minds.
This semester, middle school IDEA students are putting that spirit to work in a big way: designing and building kites inspired by Alexander Graham Bell's famous Tetrahedral Kites from the early 1900s. To kick things off, students dove into polyhedral geometry—the study of three-dimensional solids made from polygons—and built their own small models from scratch. It was a lot of fun, and the kites are just getting started.