School news
Library News
Last week, Mrs. Lessard's 7th grade English classes visited the library to pick out fiction free reads. This week, Ms. Piccoli visited Mr. Clifford's 10th grade classes to share books and online library resources with the students for their Vietnam projects. Next week will be a busy week in the library with the Young Adult Diverse Books Book Club meeting on Tuesday, May 7 during ARE time to pick up their summer reads and the Faculty/Staff Book Club meeting on Thursday, May 9 after school to discuss The Fury.
Please remember to return your overdue books, renew the books you need more time to read and check out some new reads for spring!
Sophomores Check Out Diverse Career Fields on Sophomore Shadow Day
On Thursday, April 25, WUHSMS’s sophomores participated in Sophomore Shadow Day. Students “shadowed” professionals in a wide range of fields, including aerospace engineering, medicine, emergency services, small business management, various science fields, and the building trades. More than 50 businesses, organizations, and individuals hosted students, allowing each student to learn about a career field of interest to them, try out some of the work of that career field, and learn about their host’s career path.
In reflections on their days, students gave high marks for the day and how valuable it was to them. Tucker Filiault, who shadowed at Kedron Valley Garage where he assisted with seasonal tire changes and inspections, as well as an oil change, was happy to have a hands-on, productive day. “It was a great experience!” he said.
Jacob Legayada, who shadowed Darrell Abrico of Nissan of Lebanon, noted, “I really enjoyed joining in the morning conference and see[ing] behind the scenes of a car dealership….” April 25 was actually Jacob’s third day shadowing at the Nissan dealership--and he is happy to report that he has landed a part-time job there this summer.
Alek Cirovic, who shadowed Laurie Beyranevand at Vermont Law School, appreciated talking with many women involved in the field of environmental law and had an opportunity to attend a presentation on the impact of the fashion industry on the environment. She concluded, “I am definitely interested in this field of work! This job shadow gave me more reasons to dive into this career and explore law and the environment.”
Mimi Kanda-Olmstead, who shadowed Jonathan Tuthill at the Hartford Community Restorative Justice Center commented, “What I found most interesting, as well as unique, is how these different organizations throughout the community, with very different goals, all believe in the idea of restorative justice. They all work together to ensure the community is safe….It was overall a very powerful experience, and I am so grateful for it.”
Dominic Palazzo, who joined a group of seven other WUHS students at Mt. Ascutney Hospital and Health Center for Shadow Day, appreciated learning about the many opportunities in health care. “I found the most interesting thing to be the multiple different jobs that there were around the hospital, and how everybody appreciated each person's different expertise.”
Owen Whalen was part of a small group of students who first toured UVM’s College of Engineering College and then visited Beta Technologies, an electric aerospace company. At Beta they had a tour of the company's facilities, spoke with aerospace engineer Riley Giffin (a WUHS alum), and then tried out Beta’s flight simulator. “It was a super cool experience,” Owen commented, “and made me want to become an engineer even more.”
This annual event was organized by the Center of Community Connections (C3) in conjunction with English II teachers Nate Clifford and Martha Perkins, and counselors Sofia Bertocci and Sarah Smith. The organizers and the students are very grateful to all of the community members who hosted students for this event.
Be sure you check out the front page of this week’s Focus Section in the Standard for additional photos and coverage related to this event.
Spring Plant Sale at the Woodstock Union HS/MS Greenhouse
The Spring Plant Sale at the Woodstock Union HS/MS Greenhouse is coming up! The sale will run from May 1st-31st and be open from 9am-2pm on school days. We will be open late for school staff (until 6 pm) on Monday, May 6th.
We made a few really exciting changes this year. Students start more than half of our plants by seed but we do have to source some more difficult-to-start plants (think petunias and geraniums) from a nursery. This year, all of those plants came from a nursery that is neonicotinoid free (read more about the effects of neonicotinoids on pollinators here)! Students collected and sowed MANY native plants this year. Some will be available this spring and some will be available to pre-order for fall planting. See our full list of plants here.
This year, we will also be selling No Mow May signs and Fedco seeds for varieties that you may want to direct-sow in your garden.
We will be holding a plastic plant pot collection drive again. We can only reuse 4-pack and 4” square pots in good condition. We will accept other sized pots and broken pots (if they are #2 or #5 plastic) that we will recycle through a special program but they must be clean and sorted from the 4-pack and 4” pots that we can reuse. As always, bring cardboard boxes if you have them for transporting your plants to your car.
Please contact me with any questions.
Happy Spring!
Abbie Castriotta (Greenhouse/Garden Manager)
Fantastic Fungi
By Ada Mahood
On Wednesday, April 17, some fun(gi) things were happening in the greenhouse. Woodstock Alumni David Andrews and his partner Erin Donahue from Tiny Acres Farm, visited the greenhouses to demonstrate how to plant mushrooms and to talk about their business. Students engaged in hands-on activities such as drilling the holes for the mushroom spawn, learning how to put the spawn in the holes and sealing them with beeswax.
For a little bit of a backstory, David went to WUHSMS and took Agricultural classes that were offered. One year he and Kat Robbins, who helps coordinate our CRAFT department, went to Cobb Hill farm where he learned the ins and outs of mushrooms. This hands-on experience sparked his interest in becoming a mushroom farmer. He moved out to Colorado after high school graduation, where he and his partner started experimenting and growing mushrooms for their own personal use. When they moved to Maine a few years later they made the decision to switch from personal growing to commercial farming of mushrooms. Their business has grown through local farmers markets, and restaurants. Right now they have over 2,000 logs in production. They inoculate (plant) around 1,000 a year. David's long term goal is to have 10,000 logs in production.
In those 2,000 logs they grow many varieties of mushrooms including, 13 varieties of Shitake, 4 varieties of Oyster mushrooms, Lions Mane, Chestnut, etc.
All of the CRAFT classes were involved in inoculating around 60 oak logs donated by Leo Maslan. The students drilled holes in the logs and filled them with Blue Oyster and Shitake mushrooms. Middle School students “planted” a Wine Cap mushroom bed in our permaculture garden. For the Shitake, it’ll take about 12-18 months for them to fully become mushrooms, but the Wine Caps take as little time as 1 month. Come by and see the fruits of our labor!
Woodstock-Madrid Exchange April, 2024
From April 10th through the 20th, seventeen Woodstock students participated in the second leg of a cultural exchange with students from Salesianos Paseo de Extremadura in Madrid, Spain.
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Here is your visual journey. Click here to see more pictures. Spain was fun!
