School news
Equitable climate action partnership at VINS
Middle school and high school students presented at the third annual ECAP\(Equitable Climate Action Partnership) at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science on May 8. Students got to experience some activities, check out the birds and trails, learn about birds and climate change and present their projects.
Middle school students Reese Fenity, Isa Contarino and Annabelle Park presented about their food system project from wellness. The girls gathered local foods from Annabelle’s garden, cooked over 80 healthy meals and served them to people in need in Rutland.
Middle achool atudents Reese Fenity, Isa Contarino and Annabelle Park presented about their food system project from wellness. The girls gathered local foods from Annabelle’s garden, cooked over 80 healthy meals and served them to people in need in Rutland.
High schoolers Pea Richardson, Bethany Thorburn, Sadie Boulbol, Owen Whalen and Brody Allen shared about their immersive semester work at the King Farm this past fall where they created a permaculture design for future use of the land and made and planted air pruning beads with native trees.
VT Supreme Court Justice visits 8th grade class
VT Supreme Court Justice Harold Eaton and his intern, Camille, visited with the 8th grade class as part of our study of the Bill of Rights & the US Constitution. Students are reading the book Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson as part of their study of the judicial branch of government. Justice Eaton answered student questions about his work and the role of the judiciary in our state and national governments.
Justice Eaton is very much a homegrown Woodstocker. His parents both graduated from WUHS, as he himself did in 1973, and then also his son, Matt. He went on to attend UVM and Vermont Law School and he was appointed to Vermont's highest court in 2014. We were able to dig out his yearbook from our archives!
Middle school students and teachers enjoy Winter Carnival
On March 5th, middle schoolers traded class for an afternoon at the annual Winter Carnival. The Spirit Club kicked things off with an assembly full of games and raffles, then students and teachers spread out across activities — ice skating, ping pong, Bingo, bracelet making, Just Dance, a movie, and more. The day wrapped up with cookies and cocoa outside as a whole middle school.
Students loved having the freedom to move between activities at their own pace — a detail that came up more than once. A well-earned thanks to the School Spirit Club for pulling it all together.
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.
WUHSMS musicians participate in Connecticut Valley Honors Music Festival
Twelve musicians from WUHSMS were accepted and participated in the Connecticut Valley Honors Music Festival last weekend. This festival brings together the very best middle and high school musicians from throughout the state for a two day festival, this year hosted at Bellows Falls Union High School. The festival includes over 10 hours of rehearsal followed by a featured performance. Lia Gugliotta performed with the high school jazz ensemble and all other musicians performed with the middle school concert band. Bravo tutti!
Pictured from left to right: Josiah DeWerth, Mina Gugliotta, Izzy Gieder, Josie Flaster, Lia Gugliotta, Ava Byrne, Genevieve Williams, Norah Wolfe, Sadie Rowlee, Mari Maxham, Malina Siciliano and Anabelle Park