On Thursday, our Upper School GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) were the leaders for a Day of Acceptance assembly for our Middle School. This informative assembly has been a MS tradition for the past 10 years and aims to help educate our student body in regard to the topic of LGBTQ+, using middle school language and concepts.
Last Thursday, our assembly, Holocaust Remembrance Day (or Yom HaShoah), was planned and presented by some of very own Middle School youngsters. In an age-appropriate manner, the participating students gave an explanation of the event itself as well as sharing their family’s stories of survival It was quite a moving moment to hear the personal stories of some of our D-E family members. As Mr. Kessler said, “I wanted to let the students share all that they could, because these stories are too important to be lost to history.” Over in Imperatore Library, our librarians (Thanks, Mrs. Shaurette!) assembled a corresponding display with age appropriate books (both historical fiction and nonfiction). And in HomeBase, each advisor had access to follow-up discussion questions to use if needed.
This week 6th graders took the next step in their yearlong service learning project focusing on hunger in our local communities. At the Englewood Center for Food Action, we built raised beds to create a vegetable garden where the CFA will grow food for its clients this summer. We also planted seeds and potatoes in the beds and transplanted seedlings started earlier in our campus greenhouse.
Students in the 7th grade DIG class are working on a project that potentially will add chickens to our garden ecosystem. In their current PBL, they are raising chicks that can help to control insect pests in the vegetable garden in an earth-friendly way and which will produce manure we can compost into valuable organic fertilizer. In the process of their research, students also have discovered there are a variety of food-system and humane issues at play in conventional egg-production systems. They are learning about the increasingly popular backyard and small-scale chicken-keeping movements that aim to address some of those issues. Students plan to share some of what they have learned with the Middle School student body in a series of “chicken minute” presentations at Monday Morning Meeting. They are also preparing a pop-up art show to post in an outdoor installation of the chickens for a week at the end of May in the Umpleby Vegetable Garden. Interested in chickens? The DIG students are also looking for volunteer families in the D-E community to help look after the chickens on weekends and during school vacations this summer and next fall. If you would be interested in helping, please contact Ms. Urbanowski!
Lastly you may enjoy watching two video presentations in the genre of timely and insightful TEDTalks, presented by Simran and Sunjin, as part of the 7th grade UN Sustainable Goals PBL.