THE CHALKBOARD: McDowell students help clean up Petaluma River

The McDowell Elementary School community had an exciting weekend during which many students, families and friends joined principal Lauri Anderson and several teachers to clean the Petaluma River. “We signed up for the event organized by Friends of the Petaluma River, and cleaned up the location closest to our own school: the East Washington area. It was a beautiful warm day to care for our environment, and connect with our community. Some of our students and family members even won some exciting prizes at the raffle after picking up many bags of trash,” Anderson said.

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On Friday, Carrie Strohl, PhD, led a workshop at Wilson Elementary School in Petaluma for local educators. The workshop was jointly hosted by the garden teacher at the site, Patty Sherwood, and the School Garden Network of Sonoma County. The content of this special instructional event for staff was “Next Generation Science in the Garden,” developed by Life Lab - leaders in garden-based education. “Let’s Head Outside” was the program theme, and the group learned about adding engaging student activities to put earth and life in the school’s science curriculum. One of the activities in the workshop invited participants to observe milkweed plants. Using the prompts “I notice,” “I wonder” and “It reminds me of,” learners asked questions about the yellow “pests” (oleander aphids) that were sucking the juices from the milkweed specimen brought from a personal home garden. The workshop was very successful, and included many teachers from around the county. “We are using the garden as our way to expand the opportunities in the Next Generation Science Standards for our students,” shared Wilmar Superintendent and Wilson School Principal Eric Hoppes.

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Wilson School is showing some colorful school spirit these days. Former Petaluma High School art student Hadley Osman created a new wildcat mascot mural on campus before she headed off to college at UC Santa Cruz to major in psychology. “It turned out beautifully and our students love it. PTA has done a makeover in the kitchen, and this was the very cool finishing touch,” says Hoppes. Wow, Hadley! What a great way to share your artistic talents with others, and help make all Wilson Wildcats proud.

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Ready, set, go! And they’re off! Well, sort of, according to Angela Stivenson of St. Vincent Elementary School. This week at SVES, students in Miss Jeffrey’s eighth-grade grade science class went to the races - snail races that is. Using real live snails in their lab experiment, students were able to create a distance vs. time graph in order to determine the speed of their snails. According to eighth-grader Luke Fuette, “Even though the snails kind of had their own agenda, and didn’t cooperate at times, we learned a lot about speed, velocity and acceleration.” This fun and hands-on lab is one the students won’t soon forget. Side note: No snails were harmed in the production of these races, reported Stivenson.

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Spring Hill Academy students won three first-place ribbons at the Marin County Fair this summer. At the end of last school year, first- through sixth-graders at Spring Hill Academy created a Ferris Wheel in their Makers Class. Maker Classes are becoming popular on local school campuses as a result of the international Maker Movement where people use a variety of materials to create, observe and evaluate their projects created out of their own imagination. Spring Hill students used their Maker Class time to design and create their entry in the Marin County Fair Arts & Crafts Exhibition by welding the Ferris Wheel themselves, and making small dolls to ride in the carts. The piece was then painted and LED lights (also programmed by students) were added to bring their creation to life. This July judges at the Marin County Fair awarded the project three first-place ribbons including “Best of Show,” “Best Fair Themed” (“What a Ride!” was the fair’s theme this year) and a “Special Jurors Award.” Students were all given blue first prize ribbons as well. These awards come on the heels of last year’s special “Editors Choice Awards” at the Bay Area Maker’s Faire in May for a large globe the students welded and pieced together themselves. The Spring Hill Academy Maker’s Program is lead by Diana Planson and David Moshal, and is offered to all students in grades 1-6 at Spring Hill Academy. Students weld, code, program and learn various metal sculpting techniques as part of our STEAM based curriculum.

(Maureen Highland is a Petaluma mother and executive director for the Petaluma Educational Foundation. She can be reached at schools@ar guscourier.com)