WMS Altitude Program completes 4th annual Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital Book Drive

By Masha Yurkevich

Windham Middle School (WMS) Altitude students took a trip to the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital to donate books that they had collected on Nov. 25. This is the fourth annual book drive that the Altitude program has done for the Children’s Hospital, and this year, Altitude collected 132 books.

Students from Windham Middle School's Altitude Program
collected books in November and then donated them during 
a visit to Barbara Bush Children's Hospital in Portland as
part of the 4th annual Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital
Book Drive for ill children last month.
PHOTO BY MASHA YURKEVICH
    

To collect the books, students set up collection boxes around the school and made announcements to let others know about the book drive.

“We also made posters and posted them around the school and also went to the Windham Public Library to see if we could put a collection box there,” said WMS student Ava Arterton.

An Altitude teacher also posted about the book drive on the internet and ended up raising $230, which was then used to buy books at Shermans Maine Coast book Shop and Walmart for the book drive.

“If I were in a hospital, I would be very happy if someone thought of me and brought me a book,” said Angelina Malan, a WMS Altitude student.

“When I read, it calms me down and makes me feel better,” said student Lee Small. “Maybe these books can do the same thing for the children here.”

The students all agreed that it is important to help people in need and that it feels good to make a difference.

“A little bit goes a long way,” said McKenna Grass-Goodwin. “It is a big hospital and compared to how many books we brought, we did raise a lot but compared to how many children there are in this hospital, a little goes a long way. These books might just help these children feel a little bit more normal during this hard time.”

Some of the students went over to their teachers from the previous year to talk to the kids and tell them about what happens at the Children's Hospital and why they collected books.

"It was a lot about presentation skills, too, and the opportunity to think about others,” said Altitude teacher Lisa Anderson.

Altitude teacher Autumn Carlsen-Cook said that this book drive shows the students a larger community.

“A lot of these students have connections with either themselves who have been at the Children’s Hospital or family members who have been at the Hospital,” she said. “We are all about community at Altitude and this book drive helps the students serve their community as well as practice empathy and compassion.”

“It is a big confidence booster for these students,” said Sophie Simonson, Altitude teacher. “Doing something like this makes the kids feel good about what they are doing.”

Sharon Granville is the Child Life Program Manager at the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital, with a goal to help children experience emotional safety when they are at the hospital.

“We look to help children understand the ‘why’ behind their healthcare; why are they here, who is everyone that is caring for them, what is their role,” she said. “We look to provide that information to then support coping, with the aim and goal that these children then grow up to be an adult who seeks healthcare when they are not feeling well and are not afraid to see a doctor when they are sick.”

Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital is the only children’s hospital in the state of Maine and areas of northern New Hampshire, caring for pediatric patients of all ages from neonates up to older adolescents.

“We want children to enjoy something from home,” said Granville. “Doing something that you enjoy really makes a difference when you are staying somewhere that is not home, meeting all new people, and not feeling your best, so having things like books is fantastic. We are very grateful to the Windham School Program that comes and visits us with their book drive. Our library here is unique in that our books are gifts to the kids that are here.”

By partnering with community support, such as the Windham Altitude Program, the Hospital can continue to fill their library with a variety of books to offer children of all ages and developmental levels. Specifically for the holiday season, the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital has an Amazon Gift Registry that are specific items that children will enjoy during their hospital stay.

“We always welcome any community supporters that would like to select an item from that gift registry,” said Granville. “We also have a volunteer program where we look for a minimum of a weekly six-month commitment to volunteer with us on the pediatric unit, which includes having direct contact with children and their families, playing with them, arts and crafts, games, holding babies, and just helping children feel comfortable while they are here at the hospital.”

The Amazon Gift Registry can be found on the Barbara Bus Children’s Hospital webpage, as well as more information regarding the volunteer program. <

WMS Altitude Program teaches students how to make maple syrup

By Masha Yurkevich

While some classrooms use textbooks to teach a lesson, Altitude, an alternative pathway program at Windham Middle School (WMS), used maple syrup collecting to teach its students.

Windham Middle School Altitude students gather during a 
lesson in making maple syrup. Front, from left, are 
Constance Sawyer, Mckenna Grass-Goodwin, Ava 
Atherton, Aliana Richardson, Finn Shinchfield, Logan
Partridge, and Lisa Anderson. Back, from left, are
Autumn Carlsen Cook, Angelina Malan, Elijah Fox,
Caleb Warner, Illijah Veilleux, and Allison Muir.
SUBMITTED PHOTO

Altitude is not your typical classroom setting; it is an alternative pathway program at WMS that focuses on service, experiential learning, and community building, aiming to create more hands-on learning opportunities for students who may find the traditional school setting challenging.

As maple syrup season was drawing closer, Altitude teachers Lisa Anderson, Autumn Carlsen Cook and Allison Muir decided to use this opportunity to teach their seventh grade Altitude students a variety of lessons, some of which include science, math, history, and the natural world.

Prior to going outside, students learned about the sugaring process and had guest speaker Scott Dunn from Dunn Family Farm speak to them about the task of collecting and boiling maple syrup. They learned about how to identify healthy maple trees, understanding the timing of sap flow, proper tapping techniques, and basic sap handling and boiling procedures to ensure a good quality syrup.

Then, the students walked around campus, marking off and tapping fifteen maple trees and plotting their locations on a map.

Mathematics was incorporated as the students collected data from the amount of sap they got from each tree and learned about how many taps a tree can have depending on its diameter and size. They had about 22 taps in total.

While outside, Altitude set up a “kitchen,” which consisted of four propane heaters to boil the sap for it to become maple syrup.

A group of students collected buckets of sap from their designated trees, pouring the sap into a 50-gallon barrel, which was then poured into pots and put on the heaters, carefully being monitored by the watchful eyes of another group of students.

Each pot was set at a different temperature, and the students observed the changes that were happening in each pot as the sap began to change color and get closer to the finished product, carefully taking the temperature until it reached 219°F, which is the finishing temperature of maple syrup.

“We wanted to give the students an authentic avenue for them to learn about social studies and culture, how did indigenous people first think to tap trees, as well as some Maine geography,” says Allison Muir, an Altitude teacher. “We compared ancient practices to present day modern practices, and also learned about the ecology of a tree, why does it produce sap, and why do we tap it at this time of year.”

Originally, Altitude wanted to incorporate more classroom curriculum, but once they got started, they quickly found out that they would be spending more time outside working on the sap. Teachers had to improvise, often taking the sap home to finish boiling excess water in order to speed up the process for students to then get to a finished product.

The students were able to be hands-on and used tools to tap the trees and hooked up the hosing to the tree, using teamwork to collect sap.

To see if the syrup was ready, the students either used a hydrometer to test the density of the sugar in the sap or used a thermometer, waiting until the liquid reached a temperature of 219°F.

“Once the temperature gets to 218°F, things happen really fast,” says student Aliana Richardson.

As a temperature reached 219°F, the students took the pot off the heat and filtered the syrup, and they agreed that this was a fun learning experience, and that they discovered many new things.

“Stay focused and pay attention,” said one student, Elijah Fox, to sum up the entire experience.

All the students agreed that attentiveness, hard work and teamwork was essential to making the best quality syrup. While in class the students learned that it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup, and while outside they learned that it depends on the type of maple tree from which the sap is taken.

The students also got to make pancakes, learning different measuring skills and cooking techniques, and then enjoyed their hard work of maple-syrup collecting with some fresh pancakes.

Altitude teachers hope to continue this learning experience next year. <