For the last three years, students from the high school have offered engineering clubs at local elementary schools. The first two years we worked with the Tisbury School. This past year, participating students wanted to expand the project, so we worked with all five elementary schools in our district, and we did all of the organizing and recruiting of volunteers, etc, through the MVironment Club. A team of 35 students ran the clubs. A leadership/design team designed activities to run four weekly sessions at each school, contacted teachers, prepared materials, etc, and arranged for groups of 5-10 high school students to work each week with each club at each school. This year, the teams led 3rd and 4th graders through making pinwheels, a grabber, a musical instrument, and an LED flashlight. All sessions were themed around energy and completely student-organized and run. Our program reached over 100 elementary students on the island, and the elementary teachers and schools were all extremely receptive and ready to collaborate with us.
Zachary Bresnick and Casey McAndrews, the project leaders, created a portfolio of the project and entered it to be considered for a National Energy Education Development (NEED) Project’s Youth Leadership Award. We found out Friday afternoon by email that we have been chosen as the Massachusetts Senior Level School of the Year, which is the top honor for high schools in the state. We have been invited and are hoping to attend the NEED Energy Conference and Awards Ceremony Washington DC at the end of June.
The participants in the project and the liason teachers are listed below, so feel free to congratulate them on this exciting acknowledgement of their volunteer work.
Thanks,
Natalie Munn and Anna Cotton, MVironment Club Advisors
Dana Munn, technical advising
Iris Albert
Chris Aring – Design Team
Caley Bennett – Design Team, Edgartown School Leader
Zach Bresnick (2nd year volunteering) – Design Team, Project Leader
Emma Caron (2nd year volunteering)
Ben Clark
Marcelle De Sousa Alves
Connor Downing
Lucas Dutton
Olivia Green-Lingren
Samantha Hargy
Jackie Hegarty
Courtney Howell
Gabbie Hoxsie (2nd year volunteering)
Olivia Jacobs
Maisie Jarrell – Design Team, Tisbury School Leader
Nelly Katzman – Design Team, Tisbury School Leader
Katrina Lakis (2nd year volunteering)
Jared Livingston – Design Team, Edgartown School Leader
Matt Luce
Casey McAndrews (2nd year volunteering) – Design Team, Project Leader
Madeline Moore (2nd year volunteering) – Design Team, Oak Bluffs School Leader
Ben Nadelstein
Julia Neville
David Packer – Design Team
Sara Poggi
Ellie Reagan – Design Team, Oak Bluffs School Leader
Andrew Ruimerman
Max Santos
Brahmin Thurber-Carbone – Design Team, Chilmark School Leader
Pearl Vercruysse
David Webster – Design Team, Chilmark School Leader
August Welles – Design Team, West Tisbury Leader
Charlie Whalen
Kyra Whalen (2nd year volunteering)
Jackie Guzulak – Chilmark School
Lauren Keaney Serpa and Laura Edelman – West Tisbury School
Jen Bausman and Leah Dorr – Oak Bluffs School
Robin Moriarty – Edgartown School
Anne Williamson (2nd year coordinator) – Tisbury School