School Days

Cape Tech
For the past 10 years, the Cape Tech school family has reached out to brighten the holidays for those in need. This year, more than 30 students in Key Club volunteered to help provide a “Dream Come True Christmas” for five local families in need.
Students and faculty selected a gift choice from the “Giving Wreath” and brought in an item for children and adults of all ages. Tech’s Key Club sorted and wrapped the gifts for each family. A bountiful holiday dinner complete with turkey accompanied the gift giving. The 5 dinners were donated to each of the 5 families from Tech’s Student Council.
Members of the Key Club, advisor Ms. Sharon Lee Kustra, and Ms. Lisa Nelson coordinated the project. Ms. Kustra said, “While we did not visit the families themselves this year, the students had a wonderful time sharing in the joy of helping those local families in need. In total, we touched the hearts of 23 persons.” Cape Caring for Kids collected the gifts from the school and made the deliveries.
Dennis Township
A movie line once claimed, “Build it and they will come.” Perhaps a better line would be, “Build it and they will learn.” The Gifted and Talented students of Dennis Township School District learned about microclimates through constructing milk carton biomes as a part of participating in the ‘Made By Milk’ 2012 Carton Construction Contest.
Their project repurposed 100-plus milk cartons, drained of their milk by DT students during lunch. The cartons were then painted and assembled into a tiered biome for growing herbs, including its own water supply and a plastic cover that encouraged a microclimate suitable for these plants. After a series of photos were taken to document their project and Ms. Flack describing it wrote a short essay, their biome was submitted to the ‘Made By Milk’ panel of judges.
G&T teacher Tony Pontari worked with his students to create this milk carton project and was thrilled that their idea was selected. “The kids put in hours of hard work on this project and their idea was all about finding ways to make those milk cartons give something life,” said Pontari. “ I’m really proud of their work and the final product.”
This competition was nation-wide and offered significant amounts of prize money. The milk carton creation made by DT students was selected by a panel of judges as one of three middle school winners and they won $1,500! They plan to use this money develop their ideas for growing plants further by improving the ‘Renewable Classroom and Garden’ outside the school.
The ‘Renewable Classroom and Garden’ provides a place for learning about biology, physical science and social impact. Students will reuse tires for individual plantings of native flowers and fruits, monitor weather instruments and use rain barrels. Some of these materials are available through community donations, but many of them require purchasing, so the ‘Made By Milk’ prize money will be put to good use.
In other Dennis news, the eight graders in Dennis Township Middle School traveled back in time to the 1960s recently in the Language Arts classrooms of teachers Cindy Leatherwood, Jamie Vanartsdalen and Beth Champion. After reading The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton, the students decided to delve into the time period presented in the novel. They researched Tulsa, Oklahoma in the 1960s, the role of muscle cars in teen culture, The Beatles and Elvis, Greasers, and stars of the era like Paul Newman. “This novel remains a student favorite year after year,” said Leatherwood.
“They just love the feeling of being transported to another time and place where kids faced issues like they do.”
A culminating activity for the project was a themed party, “Greasers and Socs”. Students and teachers dressed as either Greasers (leather jackets, jeans and white t-shirts) or Socs (just-so dresses, cuffed pants and of course rolled socks). Their party was divided by railroad tracks running through the middle of the classroom, just like the town was divided in the novel.
The Socs’ side of the room was decorated as the ‘right’ side of the tracks, with lace table cloths, while the Greasers’ side was decked out to be the ‘wrong’ side of the tracks, with picnic tablecloths. Students prepared themed food from the novel, like pulled pork sandwiches, chocolate cake and ice-cream sodas. They also listened to an Elvis cd throughout the party to create an atmosphere of the early 1960s. To keep it academic, the students played a trivia game using comprehension questions from the novel and the Greasers won!
Margaret Mace
Former fourth grade students at Margaret Mace School were very excited after receiving news that they were mentioned in a just-released book by author Lisa Funari Willever called Nicky Fifth Says Vote for T-Bone. They celebrated with a pizza party where they received a copy of the new book sent personally to them by the author. The cheers quickly turned to silence as Mrs. Weiser read the page in the book that referred to their project.
Last year’s fourth graders were inspired by Lisa Willever’s Nicky Fifth Series when they completed a combined social studies/computer project in Mrs. Way’s computer/technology class. The series books are about the history, economy, and culture of New Jersey from the perspective of elementary school friends, Nicky and T-bone, New Jersey’s Official Junior Ambassadors.
After the students read the books they decided to create a book of their own about their town. Each student chose a favorite place on the island. They researched, wrote and photographed an historical, economic, or cultural site and used persuasive writing to encourage people to visit. The book is filled with informative articles of exciting places to visit, colorful pictures, and interesting facts.
The class book, The Island of the Wildwoods, will be found on Ms. Willever’s website www.nickyfifth.com.