King’s Dominion, In Pictures

Your intrepid blog author didn’t attend the King’s Dominion trip this year, so I don’t have a lot of personal commentary to add (although I’m willing to bet it would have been something along the lines of had fun, blah, blah, rode rides, blah, blah, scream!, why on earth would you ride a roller coaster that you know makes you black out a little?, blah, blah, YAY!).  The King’s Dominion trip is a great way to end a year where we make the kids work very hard to accomplish a LOT of high-level academic work.  It looks like the kids had a lot of fun, and without further ado, please enjoy this HUGE post of pictures (if you have dial-up, just walk away and come back tomorrow).

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I’ll leave you with this picture, which I felt deserved pride of place here, on its own.  Mrs. Schmittou is a woman of many talents, as we all know, but you might not have known she was also good at carnival games.  The image of Rastafarian Pooh will serve as proof of her skill, forever.

Pooh is more like POOH!, here.

King’s Dominion Day

Tomorrow MVGS saunters forth for the Annual Math and Science Day at King’s Dominion.  Our students will be the ones with the cool vests and surreptitious pH testing papers.  Say “Hi!” if you see them!

As it Turns Out, Blogging is Hard Work

Busy, blah, blah, no time to write, blah, blah, apologizing is boring. Let’s move on to the fun stuff.

MVGS News:

• The end of the year is upon us, and the students are well into the frenzy of the AP testing cycle.  Pray for them.
• The King’s Dominion field experience is next Friday, and if you haven’t turned in your permission slips, DO THAT.
• Middletown has a new administrative assistant!  Everyone stop by the office and say hello to Mrs. Sovine.  (She seems very nice.)
• The Senior Banquet is May 20th! Everyone get your best clothes out, we’re going to pretend to be civilized for a few hours.
• If you’re a newly admitted MVGS student, we’ll be having an ice cream social to welcome you to the school in the first week of June! Check your email for dates and times! Of course, current students who’d like some ice cream are certainly welcome, too.

MVGS Not-News-But-Stuff-I’m-Just-Saying

MVGS teachers are beginning to consider next year’s activities, field experiences, PAL groups, etc.  If you have any thoughts on any of those topics, makes sure you find one of us and let us know.  The physics department is working on scheduling the astronomy workshop visit to Greenbank, WV, and the humanities department is beginning to think about our summer field experience (the extended Monticello tour, again, perhaps?).  Remember, we’re always working to make things better, and our fun isn’t limited to the school year!

Last Year’s MVGS Monticello Tour Group

Measuring Accelerations In King’s Dominion In Style

This post was authored by Mr. Allen Burton.

Check out our new custom-made vests!

Thanks to MVGS Parent Mrs. Barbara Verhaalen, our students were safely and stylishly able to carry wireless accelerometers and altimeters on most of the rides at King’s Dominion during our visit last Friday.  Students were predicted and then tested their predictions as to which ride in the park would have the greatest magnitude of acceleration as measured by the probes.  This was part of a larger assignment looking briefly at the effects of accelerations on the human body.   After designing their own roller coasters in Physics 1, our students found this a worthwhile use of time in the park.  Besides, who can complain when a class assignment requires you to ride a roller coaster?  Check out the data from The Intimidator taken by one of our riders:

Students are spending class time this week conditioning and analyzing the data as well as looking up some facts regarding acceleration as experienced by astronauts.  Maybe we can unlock the secret behind the tunnel vision reportedly experienced by many riders on The Intimidator?  Who says Physics isn’t Phun?

Your faithful blog editor has frequently been heard to say that Physics isn’t Phun (I gagged a little at the inappropriate spelling, btw), but Mr. Burton assures me I am incorrect.

Winning Middletown Field Experience Blog!!!!

This post is the work of Headley Wilson and Carolyn Flax, and has been minimally edited by your faithful blog author.

As the sun rose on the Middletown campus of Lord Fairfax Community College, hoards of half-asleep teens boarded two buses headed towards the National Air and Space Museum in Dulles, Virginia. The teens listened to the soothing voice of Kurt give his lecture regarding how all passengers should not eat on the coach or throw any trash onto its marvelous floors. Kurt continued to inform all passengers to pull the sunscreens down from the middle and not the sides, due to the potential debt of $107 that one could be facing. Soon enough, the Middletown geniuses (Mr. Hess calls us that!) were joined by their Warrenton comrades, and the Mountain Vista students bubbled with excitement during the journey to the Udvar-Hazy center. The prospect of extra knowledge was almost too much to handle.

Once at the museum, the adolescent scholars were escorted to the IMAX theatre for a showing of Destiny in Space. The students learned many things about space travel from the film, including the ways it would suck to be an astronaut. When the movie was over the youngsters split up; some headed for tours of the museum, while others had some free time. An hour and a half later, the other half of the teens took their tours. The tours were fascinating and taught the students about many different facets of flying, both inside and outside of our atmosphere. I am very jealous that Eric Forman was not my tour guide, since he is a main character on one of my favorite shows of all time, but Phil was an awesome replacement.

The ship was not our tour guide. The little man in front of it was.

Phil provided us with a plethora of information. He showed us planes that were powered by fuel, solar energy, and even bicycles. However, one of the planes that stood out was not just a plane, but it served as a car as well. The designer of this plane had to fly to a lot of small cities and areas that did not have a lot of taxis. So, since building a plane-car seems like the logical solution, he went for it. His idea proved to be successful and very cool but apparently people don’t find plane-cars to be very practical, so his design was never adopted.

Car Plane

A more recent project that the United States is working on is the Mars rovers. The Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum had a model of the Mars Sojourner Rover that actually landed on Mars. This successful operation has led to many other exploration projects and has allowed scientists to discover ice on Mars. As a result, I have decided that in order to avoid the upcoming doom of 2012, we should all just go to Mars. It would only take us a few hundred years to get there, which seems like a walk in the park to me!

Mission to Mars

As the tours came to an end, the teenagers needed an adrenaline rush to balance out the immense amount of talking and knowledge that they just received. This led all of them to the flight simulators that were available inside the museum. There was a space simulator, jet simulator, and a simulator in which you actually got to fly and shoot missiles at other fighter jets. We all anticipated that Mr. Dietrich would own at using the missile launcher, but I have yet to figure out why we made this prediction (Editor’s Note: Let’s not forget Ms. Harrington’s impressive flying, which enabled Mrs. Wilmore to shoot down THREE enemy planes. THREE! Who’s the warrior now, Dietrich?). It is not like he was in the Navy or owns guns or anything like that. But anyway, everyone seemed to enjoy their success, or lack thereof.

The hours began to dwindle away and the bellies of all the MVGS representatives were beginning to drown out the screams of those in the flight simulators. As a result, many of the young scholars dined on fine cuisine at McDonald’s. Others checked out the sweet merchandise for sale in the gift store, while some spent extra time walking around viewing the planes in the museum. It is safe to say that everyone enjoyed the trip to the Udvar-Hazy National Air and Space Museum. There seemed to be something for everyone: Big Macs, a movie on a 6 story screen, space shuttles, planes, gift shop, and flight simulators. At the end of the day, all that was left to do was sit back and enjoy a nice ride on the coach with Kurt.

Not an Actor

Technical Difficulties and Self-Interested Stuff

Dear Readership (all six of you), I was supposed to have the Middletown Udvar-Hazy post up today, but we had some technical issues with formatting last week, and today I was going to get it posted. Alas, I left the new laptop with all my work on it at home, and am using an old laptop we saved for back-up today. Please forgive my thoughtlessness. I am truly ashamed. Really. The Middletown post will be up tomorrow, you have my word.

Now, on to other business (the “Stuff”):
I am debating what I would like to do for the Spring Seminar series which begins next week. I had been contemplating doing a revised edition of my “History of Country Music” seminar, but I was unsure of the interest and whether or not I felt like repeating myself. I do try to keep it fresh, y’all. So, without further ado: the MVGS Blog introduces its first POLL!!!! (I’m not going to prevaricate; I have been dying to do a poll since I realized that poll-making was a WordPress function. This is pretty exciting for me. Also exciting for me: Top Chef, a new Timothy Olyphant show, and the appearance of the new season’s sandals. My excitement standards could arguably be considered low.)

Please vote only once, and obviously, please vote only if you’re a Middletown student. (I see you getting ready to vote, Mr. Hess! You can’t take my seminar; you’re a teacher! We’ve discussed this!)

UPDATE: I think the Wild Card seminar would be Creative Writing. Leave a comment if that changes your vote!

Spring Field Experience Shenanigans

I said I’d post again tomorrow; I didn’t say WHAT TIME tomorrow.  Ahem.

You would not believe the hoops your MVGS staff has jumped through in order to create a Spring Field Experience for you, students.  It has been a labor of love, kittens, let me tell you.

First: We were planning a trip to Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania (www.longwoodgardens.org).  MVGS took a trip there a few years ago, and they customized a great experience for us.  We got to see their research greenhouses, we got to take a tour of the bowels of their extensive fountain system, we got to drill holes in trees, and it was awesome.  One of our students (a native of Russia originally [Hi, Irina!]) told me that the grandeur of Longwood Gardens reminded her of the Imperial Palace grounds in St. Petersburg.  It’s a beautiful place, and if you get a chance I highly recommend you visit…’cause you won’t be going with us.  Since we originally visited, their educational programs have grown so popular that they no longer customize field trips (do you think someone told the manager that they let 40 high school students into the fountain bowels?).
Field trip option #1: Fail

Second: Mr. Dietrich was all, “Let’s go visit Goddard Space Station!  Rockets, yeah!”  So, he started trying to put together a trip to Goddard.  And, Goddard has a lovely educational program with facilities for tours and speakers and it was gonna be awesome!…and, then, they found out we were bringing about 10 students more than their facility can accomodate.
Field trip option #2: Fail

Third: At this point we were getting pretty desperate, the C-word was even being thrown around (cancellation).  We weren’t sure we could come up with something fun, cool, educational and also something that would personally amuse the faculty (Just Kidding).  We considered Langley Air Force Base (too far), the Holocaust Memorial (been there already), the National Gallery (been there already), Richmond (going there for VJAS this year), and a bunch of other options that just weren’t going to work.

Finally: And, finally, we decided that we would pull together something semi-local, something appropriately science-y, and go with an option slightly less complicated than trying to obtain military base clearance for 120 people.  Your Spring Field Experience Destination is…UDVAR-HAZY, THE SMITHSONIAN AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM THAT’S NOT IN DC!!!!!!!!!!  And, if you haven’t been, it’s a pretty big place, like, multiple air hangars big.  There’s an Imax theater, flight simulators, tours, and a McDonald’s.  Nothing’s more exciting than a Big Mac on a field trip experience, y’all.

We’re still working on an Option B for the afternoon portion of the trip.  We’re currently planning on splitting into two groups after we’re done at Udvar-Hazy, at which point we’ll go do some other cool stuff.  I’d tell you about the plans, but given the track record with planning that I listed at the beginning of the post, I think I’ll refrain from jinxing the rest of our plans.  When the reservations are made and confirmed, I’ll tell you about them.

And, if you’ve ever wondered what your faculty does in the afternoons after you all leave, the answer is: we make phone calls and beg people to let all of you yahoos invade their spaces.  Sometimes, they even say yes.  (The rest of the time we spend making fun of Mr. Hess’s hair.)

Parents! We need you!

Dear Parents (students, just look away for a minute, this doesn’t concern you ),

Our DC Field Experience is rapidly approaching.  It’s scheduled for November 12th, and we’re planning on being gone from around 7:30 in the morning until, oh, about midnight or so.

Our DC trip is the most complex trip that we plan throughout the school year: the juniors and the seniors have different trips and the seniors have a choice of FOUR trips.  Given the size and complexity of our groups this year, we are in need of parent volunteers to chaperone.

MVGS has a small faculty (but we’re scrappy!), and the 10 of us cannot possibly provide proper supervision for all our students without your help.  (We will endeavor to place you either with your child or, um, not with your child, as you and they wish, by the way.)

The students will be taking fancy tour buses to DC, but we will ask that any parents accompanying us either drive themselves to DC or carpoolwith other parent volunteers.  Dr. Williamson can assist with parking and directions issues.  Now, we know that being forced to ride in a nice quiet car to DC rather than ride on a bus stuffed with over 60 sweaty teenagers is a lot to ask, but we hope you’ll forgive us.

In addition, you don’t have to stay with the students after the time we all meet for dinner in the evening.  At that point, the staff can handle taking the students to Oklahoma! at the Arena Stage.  Of course, you could accompany us to that event, as well, if you’re interested.  (Or, you could go have a lovely dinner at a fabulous DC restaurant with your spouse/friends/new carpool buddies.  Your call. )

If you think you’re up for the MVGS field experience chaperone challenge, please contact myself, Mrs. Wilmore (dwilmore@lfcc.edu) or Dr. Williamson (rwilliamson@lfcc.edu).

MVGS in the News

Recently, MVGS students were asked to share their experiences at the MVGS summer astronomy workshop with the Warren County School Board. 

Two newspaper reporters found the presentation worthy of ink (as well as web space).  Check out the links below to read the stories:

• Northern Virginia Daily:  http://www.nvdaily.com/news/2010/09/governors-school-students-brief-board-on-trip.php
• Warren Sentinel:  http://www.thewarrensentinel.com/editions/view/fp.SummerProgAstronomy.html

VERDUN

In Latin, the word verdun means “strong fort.”  Certainly, the group leaders and administrators of Verdun intend to create a fortress of solidarity amongst the visitors to their facility.  “Doc” Snyder, who established Verdun, and who greets each group before they begin their day’s work, emphasizes the need for self-understanding, reflection, and actively serving your fellow man.  The students are clear, from the very beginning, about their learning objectives for the day. 

"Doc" Snyder: founder of Verdun Adventure Bound

For our first field experience, it is generally the intention of the faculty to have students focus on team-building.  So much of what we do here at MVGS revolves around group work, working in teams, and learning to function within a coalition of thinkers, that we believe proper team-building is crucial to the school’s success.  Verdun’s program enables us to achieve that goal while allowing the students to have a great day outdoors…and in the air. 

The Squirrel

One of the favorite activities amongst the students, The Squirrel promotes trust and risk-taking.  The student in the air is propelled upwards by the strength of their classmates, and while all safety procedures are followed, and the student is never in danger, it certainly does require bravery to begin the process. 

The journey of a thousand miles begins with...

The balance beam is an activity in which you are supported by a network of your teammates on the ground, but only you can complete the journey.  Even when there are people to catch you if you fall, ultimately, you have to be the one who charts your course.

Crowd-surfing: with a purpose

Verdun’s able facilitators led our students throughout the day, constantly reinforcing the message that when everyone works together we are all supported. 

Whoopsi daisy!

In a good team, someone is always there to catch you when you fall.

Smooshed

Even when you think the worst is going to happen, someone in your team always has your back.

Victorious

And, in the end, everyone gets to fly. 

Thank you to the students for creating a wonderful day with your enthusiasm and excitement.  Without your positivity and vigor, nothing we do at Verdun (or MVGS) would be worthwhile.  And, thank you to Verdun, for hosting us and being leadership inspirations to our students. 

WAYYYY more pictures (and videos!) are available for viewing at the school’s picture website: www.mvista.smugmug.com