School news
Artists from Poetry Out Loud visit
On Tuesday, January 17th, Poetry Out Loud visiting artists Gina Stevensen and Quinn Rol from the Flynn Center visited a number of English classes in grades 9 through 12. Quinn and Gina led students through warm-up exercises and demonstrated "dos and don'ts" for presenting their self-selected poems.
All students in these classes will be presenting their poems to their peers, and some plan to move on to a school-wide Poetry Out Loud competition in February. Several brave students stood before their peers on January 17th to begin practicing their recitations.
We learned about the value of connecting with an audience through poetry recited "by heart" and/pr by readings delivered with poise, clear articulation, dramatic appropriateness, accuracy, and evidence of understanding.
8th grade class read “It Ain’t So Awful Falafel”
We made falafels! The 8th grade class finished the book, It Ain’t So Awful Falafel by Firoozeh Dumas about America’s relationship with Iran. The main character, an Iranian middle school-aged girl living in the US, makes the point that falafels are not traditionally Iranian but Americans often don’t know the difference. Jennifer Jabareen, one of our paraeducators, made the authentic falafel mixture and students made 3 dips. There were no leftover falafels and they got to sample some Persian ice cream flavored with saffron, rose water, and pistachios while taking their summatives this week.
9th grader leads origami workshop
Ms. Piana's level I Drawing class took a break from working in 2D to take an origami workshop with 9th grader Dexter Namkung. Dex walked the students through his very own diamondback fighter design, a "simple" 26 step process! After completing at least one origami figure the students arranged them alongside found objects to create a still life to draw using soft pastels.
Recycle your plastic film for Earthbeat!
Our very own Earthbeat environmental club is participating in a NexTrex recycling program, for the purpose of recycling plastic films which would otherwise be discarded in landfills. From now up until the end of the school year, the club accepts all plastic films from ziploc bags to bubble wrap. Once our school collects 500 lbs of plastic film, it will be delivered to NexTrex and transformed into a bench. There are currently two drop-off locations in the WUHSMS school building, one in the main lobby and one next to the senior solarium. Thank you in advance for any contributions!
Skill Building for Innovation students present prototypes
Skill Building for Innovation students presented final prototypes to National Park Service staff and received feedback with offers for future internships!
Turdus migratorius: the scientific name of the American Robin, as identified by a smart birdhouse designed by Skill Building for Innovation students. They also designed a water wheel and foldable collection device to monitor and record stream water flow.
These projects were in response to challenges set forth by staff members from the National Park Service’s Northeast Temperate Network who were looking for better ways to gather and analyze data from the variety of natural resources that they monitor across eleven national parks n the Northeast. To culminate a semester-long project, students presented final prototypes to NPS staff and received feedback and offers for future internships! (Take a peek at an in-progress website for Spybird.)