In their Museo Viviente (Living Museum), Spanish 4 students portrayed well-known figures of Hispanic heritage using costumes and artifacts. Teachers and fellow students were able to come to the “museum” and listen to the presentations on notable persons including Bad Bunny, Queen Isabella I of Castile, Luis von Ahn, and Lionel Messi. ¡Buen trabajo, estudiantes! See more here!
Our community recently enjoyed the annual International Festival, a wonderful event organized by the International Student Organization! Our students, families, and faculty set up stations in the Main Hall representing and celebrating their many cultures and countries, offering bites of food, games, presentations, music, dancing and opportunities for connection and conversation. Enjoy the gallery of photos here!
This year’s Upper School Outdoor Education Fall Backpacking trip was not only full but also had a waiting list! Students met the challenge of adventure as they hiked a section of the historic Appalachian Trail with steep, rocky terrain while wearing heavy backpacks. Students were completely unplugged as they worked as a group to set up camp, build a fire, protect their food from bears, navigate with a map and compass, and cook together.
The trip was led by Director of Outdoor Education Chris Costa and Middle School Outdoor Education teacher Tom Berrian. Costa shared that students were particularly resilient when, due to a lack of trail markers, they hiked an additional three miles with their full packs! “We are so proud of how they showed leadership and supported one another on their journey!” Check out more of their adventure here!
After a 4:oo a.m. departure from school on a cool October morning, the Environmental Science class arrived at the North Brigantine Natural Area at the Jersey Shore with the task of documenting shorebird species and doing clean-up. There were copious amounts of gnats, but still, a beautiful sunrise greeted the team and the students were quickly introduced to the reality of ecological fieldwork. Teacher Ryan Black shares, “They persevered and despite very low numbers along most of our three-mile survey, we were treated to a large abundance of shorebirds at the northern point. Approximately 20 endangered red knots, 198 American Oystercatchers (a New Jersey species of concern), and 220 Black-bellied Plovers were the highlight of the survey. The students helped count 1,657 shorebirds in total and identified nine different shorebird species after only seeing 50 sanderlings for the first three miles of our journey. It was a sight to behold! They removed 229 pieces of waste (mostly plastic debris) on the three-mile walk back.”
The Middle School canoe trips have been a signature program in the Middle School for over 40 years. The seventh grade’s canoe trip placement at the beginning of the school year is intentional, as this trip is often a formative experience for students, resulting in deeper relationships with peers and faculty, an increased sense of self-confidence, and a belief in their ability to overcome obstacles both individually and as a group. This canoe trip is also an integral component of community building as they enter their seventh grade year.
In September, seventh graders, along with Director of Outdoor Education Chris Costa, several Middle School faculty members, and a trained safety boater, paddled a section of the Delaware River located in the beautiful Delaware Water Gap Recreation Area on the border of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. They carried all supplies with them on the river and camped as they traveled downstream.
All students participated in the meaningful work of traveling as a large group down the river, which included tasks such as tent setup, meal preparation and cleanup, fire building, and canoe packing and unpacking. Students learned navigation skills and had several opportunities to practice leadership in small and large groups. In addition, students continued their understanding of Leave No Trace (LNT) wilderness travel practices that they began working on in their sixth-grade Outdoor Education program.
Enjoy more photos of their adventure here!
In the culmination of their Food Truck Challenge project, seventh-grade science students hosted their “customers”—the third graders. For this design thinking project created by science teacher Carlos Charriez, the seventh graders were challenged to design a food truck for their Lower School friends that focused on healthy eating. Centering the creative process on empathy, they were tasked with interviewing the third graders, considering special dietary needs, and then reworking their concepts based on feedback from their customers. At the reveal day of the Food Truck Challenge, third graders got to sample the offerings that ranged from plant-based milkshakes to grilled fruit!
Carlos Charriez’s seventh-grade science curriculum provides abundant opportunities for inquiry, observation, and research. Over the fall term, students have engaged in experiential projects that challenge them to understand design, data, and analysis. Charriez also looks for opportunities to work across divisions, especially with Lower Schoolers. Charriez shares about these projects, “The first annual Lower School collaboration was a follow-up project to our Experimental Gardens Lab where students had a chance to apply the scientific method with the goal of understanding the factors that influence the growth of snap peas. Along the way, they learned how to design experiments, collect and analyze data, and ultimately grow and eat snap peas, which are tied into our unit on cells and the digestive system.
“To take it a step further, we decided to apply this process to human subjects—in this case fifth graders. They were given some physical and cognitive tasks to complete along with a variable that the sixth graders wanted to test. For example, one group wanted to see how encouragement influenced someone’s accuracy in shooting a basketball. Another group wanted to see how ‘pump-up’ music influences someone’s ability to do sit-ups. Each of these experiments had to be carefully designed and controlled to improve the accuracy and reliability of the results. While we couldn’t control every variable, students did their best to try and even the playing field as their fifth grade ‘subjects’ completed the task.”
The next week, the sixth grade students went to the Lower School to work with the fifth graders on documenting the results. “Our follow-up visit to the Lower School allowed the two grades to collaborate on graphing and analyzing the results,” says Charriez. “As this is something we do quite often in sixth grade, students were able to teach the fifth graders how to create a simple graph using Google spreadsheets, along with real-time data collected from their experiments.”
Although the fifth graders were the “subjects” of these experiments, it was a learning experience for them as well. Lower School science teacher Colby Van Alen shares, “This was a wonderful opportunity for fifth graders to not only interact with sixth graders, but to also have a sample of what is to come in sixth grade science. This collaboration sparked their imaginations into what experiments entail as well as a deeper understanding of variables and data collection, and how what seems like a simple idea can be stretched and tested. It was such an engaging and fun collaboration! Fifth graders are certainly looking forward to their turn at designing experiments next year.”
Fourth graders spend the fall term learning about the Lenape people who were the first people to live on the land that is now our campus. Their studies culminated in their Lenape Celebration Days, a way to honor and celebrate the Lenape while enjoying the beauty of this campus.
Teachers Shelagh Wilson and Marion Dear, along with parent volunteers, made soup and snacks with students using traditional Lenape crops, went for a hike on campus, and canoed on the lake. They also played traditional Lenape games. Other campus activities included time on the ropes course, a cookout at the lake, a sunset Meeting for Worship, and making s’mores at the fire circle.
Is it even Halloween without the Lower School Mask Parade? Our youngest artists each designed and created their one-of-a-kind mask in their art classes using recycled materials and various supplies. As is our beloved tradition, Lower School students paraded around Coach Downey Court to show their creations to the adoring crowd! See more masks here!
In the Lower School, the last Meeting for Worship of the school year honors fifth graders and their graduation from Lower School. Each student stands from the facing benches to share a thoughtful reflection about their time in Lower School, then Meeting for Worship is observed. It is wonderful tradition that centers on each student’s experience. Congratulations to our rising sixth graders!
