A Message from the Admissions Office |
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Greetings from the Manlius Pebble Hill School Admissions Office!
We are excited that you are interested in learning more about MPH and pleased to offer you a glimpse of our program and community in this Discover MPH e-newsletter. Our Admissions team stands ready to assist your continued exploration of the School. While we may be reimagining our admissions process to make sure it aligns with health and safety protocols, we are confident we can offer prospective families an informative and personalized experience that deepens your understanding of MPH. We hope you will attend an upcoming virtual Info Session to connect with us and learn more! Enjoy!
Nicole Cicoria
Director of Admissions
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Click here to view a brief video message from Head of School Dave McCusker. Dave believes your exploration of MPH may well reveal what he discovered about our community when he was a candidate for the role – and what he appreciates even more deeply now in his second year.
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The Miracle of Marigolds!
Pre-K students recently planted seeds they had received in individual kits that were delivered to them by the Upper School student club called Roots and Shoots. They discussed what is required in order to grow and take care of their plants. This week, these young ones will engage in a “color-changing flowers” experiment and learn how plants drink water by observing what happens when white carnations are placed in colored water.
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A Sweet Visit from a Special Guest |
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Fondly known to Kindergarten students as “The Beekeeper” (thanks to her fall classroom visit, wherein she shared with them her firsthand apiarist’s knowledge on the topic of honeybees), staff member Amy Critz visited the class again in late March to share her interest in one of Mother Nature’s other bountiful gifts: maple sap. Kindergarteners learned how maple trees are tapped and sap collected, then boiled to syrup, bottled, and graded (golden, amber, dark, very dark). The young scientists asked probing questions and concluded their lesson with a taste of Miss Critz’s freshly bottled amber syrup. View the photo gallery and video on the left.
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Grade 1 Actor-Writers!
First graders have been practicing writing complete sentences and using them to put together stories in Literacy. After reading classmate Eleanor's story, the students enjoyed taking turns acting out the roles in the story. Take a look at Eleanor's story below!
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Upper Schoolers Share Civil Rights Movement Knowledge with Grade 3
Students in Grade 3 have been learning about the Civil Rights Movement. An important question came up while they were researching: Was America the only country facing these challenges of segregation and separation due to race and religion? To find the answer, students looked to Mrs. Chhablani’s 10th graders, who were focusing on imperialism throughout the world. Mrs. Chhablani’s students created picture books about imperialism in different countries and read them to the Grade 3 class via Zoom. After the Zoom call, the Upper School students delivered their books to the Grade 3 classroom personally so that their younger counterparts could view them up close. It was a creative and innovative way for Lower and Upper School students to work together and for everyone to learn something new! Click the image to see the photo gallery.
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The Domino-Toppling Craze
Mr. Zlomek’s 6th-grade technology students took some time off from electronics one day to learn about the Bob Speca domino-toppling craze. (For context: In 1976 Bob established the first official world record for the most dominoes toppled in a chain reaction by setting up and knocking down 11,111 pieces at the young age of 18. This led to a long-lasting competition among domino builders around the world.) This toppling phenomenon is generated by standing up dominoes in sequence to set the stage for a chain reaction. While building their domino masterpieces, 6th graders learned about potential and kinetic energy. They recognized that having a steady hand and a solid surface helped to not cause a chain reaction before the competition even began. Students worked together on communicating, thinking critically, and analyzing the situation. They competed in groups to see which group could build a successful course from start to finish. See some photos of the students at work by clicking the image below.
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Middle Schoolers Map Out Walking Trails
With temperatures on the rise, Mr. Spear has been encouraging the entire MPH community to get outdoors. And to help our students and faculty discover that perfect on-campus walking trail, our Middle School Leadership Team (comprising class officers from Grades 6, 7, and 8) has mapped out several options to enjoy. All options include descriptions, estimated times, and distances. The Courtyard Trail offers an indoor route with a detour through the STEAM Park. If you want to venture out to Jamesville Road, look no further than the Curtis Trail, aptly named for the originator of the “brisk walk” himself: Mr. Curtis. The CEL trail is similar, but without the distance. Want something without all the traffic? Check out the Foster trail, which wraps around the back of the school providing magnificent views of the Lower Field and beyond (thank you Ms. Foster!). Kudos to the students on the MS Leadership Team, who took time to map out trails and write up descriptions! Click on the image to view all the trails and their descriptions.
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Warm Weather Provides Outdoor Music Venue
Last week's spring weather offered our performing artists a chance to entertain listeners in the STEAM Park. The Wind Ensemble temporarily morphed into a Korean Percussion Ensemble, inspired by the native Korean group “Samul Nori” and playing four different instruments: Kkwaengwari (a small hand-held gong), Changgo (an hourglass-shaped drum), Buk (a barrell drum), and Ching (a large gong). The piece in the video below is called “Tongsalpuri,” and it is used in Korea as an instructional piece. Our students collaborated to create an expanded arrangement, including terraced entrances, a solo battle, and a stirring accelerando near the end of the piece.
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Introducing MPH Light & Magic
Juniors Simon Fortner and Jake Aretsky have spent some of their time during the pandemic helping various MPH community members with livestreaming technology. They began by honoring a request from their technology teacher, Mr. Zlomek, to stream soccer games in the fall, which later led to their streaming basketball games in the winter. Most recently, Mr. McCusker and Mr. Montas needed some help with the weekly All-School Meetings, so Simon and Jake took their combined talent to the next level by creating MPH Light & Magic. They now meet regularly to plan and create content each week. So far they have created opening videos for these virtual community meetings using themes such as Minecraft, Star Wars, the one-year anniversary of COVID-19, and the Olympics. Each video has an MPH "spin," including a recreation of the Phoenix Student Center in Minecraft and the passing of a faux Olympic torch from teacher to teacher. MPH Light & Magic now even has a website displaying all their work. With many more projects on the horizon, the goal of MPH Light & Magic is to expand the audio/visual offerings of the School by showcasing our campus and school events from the student perspective. Check out their website here!
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Alumni Guest Speaker Takes MPH Community (Theoretically) into Space!
At a recent All-School Meeting, we welcomed Steve Goldman '09 to talk to students, faculty, and staff about all things MPH and beyond…that is, beyond even our own galaxy! While he was an MPH student, Steve was a member of the soccer team, the Rolling Stone, the Broadcast Journalism Club, the Spanish Club, and the Barber Shop Singers. After high school, Steve attended St. Lawrence University and graduated with a B.S. in physics. He then moved to the United Kingdom and received his Ph.D. in astronomy. Steve is now a postdoctoral fellow working for the Space Telescope Science Institute. His recent work focused on searching for sun-sized stars toward the ends of their lives in nearby galaxies. These stars in their final stages produce a tremendous amount of dust and contribute, in one year, up to 30 times the mass of the Earth (and up to 85 percent of their own mass) back to the universe. We learned that the study of this stage is extremely important for understanding the origin of cosmic dust and how stars and galaxies evolve over time.
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MPH Community Donates More Than 5,000 Needed Items
to “Wipe Out,” “Sock,” and “Can” the Pandemic!
One healthy way our community has worked through the challenges of the pandemic is by reaching beyond ourselves to offer a helping hand to others. The Onondaga County Health Department has helped keep our community healthy by providing regular, on-campus COVID-19 testing, free of charge, and our MPH4MPH Club members have invited our community to “pay it forward” by participating in testing-day drives to collect needed items for our neighbors. To date, we have donated more than 5,000 needed items to the Food Bank of Central New York, the Samaritan Center, and — most recently — the Ronald McDonald House (an organization that was grateful to receive our donations of hand sanitizer, soap, and disinfectant wipes to help “wipe out” the pandemic). Exercising our core value of kindness benefits the health and well-being of both the giver and the receiver of kindness. Thank you for your kindness!
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Student Scientists Recognized
Seven Middle and Upper School student scientists participated in the Central New York Science and Engineering Virtual Fair held on March 21, and we are pleased to share that all seven were recognized for their outstanding effort! Below is a list of all participants and the names of their respective projects. Click the image below to see screenshots of their awards. In addition to congratulations to these students, we extend our gratitude to Ms. Foster for her commitment to supporting our student scientists in this endeavor!
MPH Participants:
Jake Aretsky: "An Efficient Liquid Cooling Garment"
Alexa Rose Battaglia: "Combating Crown Gall: Prevention of Cancer in Plants"
Elise Eng: "What's Your Frequency? RF Radiation Levels in Cell Phones and Headphones"
Amitees Fazeli: "Water Purification"
Genevive McGuire Griffin: "A Butterfly Journal"
Ferial Migeed: "Glyphosate Removal"
Matthew Roberson: "Utilizing a Photographic Method for Measuring Sky Glow"
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Students Helping Students
MPH’s Community Outreach Alliance (COA) Club has been busy making desks for students in need, who have been learning online without a space to study in or desks on which to do their work. The COA partnered with Operation Northern Comfort, an organization that sent desk kits and paired our club members with the students in need. The COA and additional MPH volunteers helped build, paint, and ultimately deliver the desks. The members of the COA would like to thank our dedicated Facilities crew for making the deliveries possible!
See the photo gallery and video clip by clicking the images below!
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Read More Like This!
If you would like to see complete issues of Snapshot, our weekly e-newsletter to current MPH families — and the publication from which most of the stories above have been excerpted — click here.
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