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November - December 2004
| Poughkeepsie
Day School to Stage A Midsummer Night's Dream
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December 6, 2004 Poughkeepsie, NY--Poughkeepsie
Day School will mount a production of Shakespeare's best-known comedy,
A Midsummer Night's Dream, this weekend in the school's James Earl Jones
Theater. Curtain time is 7:00 on Friday and Saturday nights, December
10 and 11. The play, a delightful blend of enchantment, poetry and slapstick
humor, is readily accessible to children of all ages as well as adults.
Founded in 1934, Poughkeepsie Day School enrolls 350 students in grades pre-kindergarten through grade 12 from 48 communities in the mid-Hudson Valley. It is distinguished by its interactive and interdisciplinary approach to learning and emphasis on the development of creative and critical thinking skills. Typically, 100% of graduating seniors are admitted to colleges and universities each year.For more information, contact the Office of Communications at 845-462-7600, extension 110. ***** |
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November 22, 2004
Contact: Sandra Moore, Director of Communications (extension 110; smoore@poughkeepsieday.org)
Poughkeepsie, NY -- Poughkeepsie
Day School was recently notified that middle school science teacher Laura Graceffa
and her seventh and eighth-grade students have been recognized for their exemplary
participation in the GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the
Environment) program by being named to the honor roll of the organization's
chief scientist, Dr. Margaret LeMone.
In conjunction with designing a new two-year environmental science program at
the Town of Poughkeepsie independent school, Ms. Graceffa participated in a
GLOBE teacher training program in the summer of 2003. The first course in the
new program, which was offered last year, featured regular field trips to the
Casperkill and Fallkill, tributaries of the Hudson River. There students monitored
the water with a series of tests, entered their data onto the world-wide GLOBE
database, and kept track of their own sites through the GLOBE program. "The
kids really loved the trips and collecting the data. We looked specifically
at dissolved oxygen content, pH, alkalinity, turbidity, temperature, conductivity
and nitrate content and how all of those varying levels might affect wildlife
both in and near those streams," said Graceffa. Dr. LeMone's citation noted
that Day School students had taken a total of 319 measurements, or more than
33 readings per month, during their hydrology study, a rate of reporting that
"distinguishes your school as an outstanding leader in GLOBE."
An additional component of the middle school hydrology course involved the school's
first- and second- grade students who, under the auspices of a Heritage Education
Grant that the school received from the National Park Service, Hudson River
Valley National Heritage Area and Hudson River Valley Greenway, investigated
the Hudson River last year in collaboration with such area organizations as
the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater and the Institute for Ecosystem Studies. As
part of both groups' study of water, they teamed up as "science buddies."
According to middle school head George Swain, this was "particularly gratifying
for the middle schoolers because they served as mentors to the younger children
while also learning from them." He added that although "Poughkeepsie
Day School prides itself on approaching all learning in a hands-on, interactive
way, the GLOBE program allowed our students to expand upon this approach significantly."
The second course offering in Ms. Graceffa's two-year environmental science
cycle, called Soil and Atmosphere, will use the school's own wooded 35-acre
campus as a laboratory for GLOBE, where students are currently examining moisture
content and soil temperature within a fifty meter parcel of land during a ten-twelve
week period.
GLOBE is an international
environmental science and education program, which aims to increase student
awareness of the environment from a scientific viewpoint. It is a cooperative
effort, led in the United States by a Federal interagency program supported
by NASA, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. State Department, in partnership
with colleges and universities, state and local school systems and non-government
organizations. Internationally, GLOBE collaborates with over 100 other countries;
more than a million primary and secondary students in more than 14,000 schools
have taken part in the program to date.
Founded in 1934, Poughkeepsie Day School enrolls 345 students in pre-kindergarten
through grade 12 from 50 communities in the mid-Hudson Valley. It is distinguished
by its interactive and interdisciplinary approach to learning and emphasis on
the development of creative and critical thinking skills. Typically, 100% of
graduating seniors are admitted to colleges and universities each year.
For more information, call
845-462-7600, ext. 110.
| Jean Craighead George and Nancy Willard featured at Poughkeepsie Day School Book Fair | ||
Jean Craighead George
is the author of more than 100 books, including Julie of the Wolves,
1973 winner of the prestigious Newbery Medal, the American Library Association's
award for the most distinguished contribution to literature for children,
and the beloved My Side of the Mountain, a 1960 Newbery Honor Book.
A science and literature graduate of Pennsylvania State University, George
began her professional career in the 1940s as a reporter for The Washington
Post and a member of the White House Press Corps. Nancy Willard, an award-winning
children's author, poet and essayist teaches at Vassar College. Educated
at the University of Michigan and Stanford University, she wrote A
Visit to William Blake's Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers
(1981), the first book of poetry to win the Newbery Medal. Among her other
children's books are High Rise Glorious Skittle Skat Roarious Sky Pie
Angel Food Cake and Pish, Posh, Said Hieronymus Bosch. ***** |
