Recent field trips sent seventh and eighth graders to area colleges to expand on work they were doing in the classroom.

Will Eberle’s eighth grade Latin class visited Mount Holyoke College’s museum to explore its collection of statues of Roman Lares (household gods).

The quotation from Cicero reads, “The most sacred, the most hallowed place on earth is the home of each and every citizen. There are his sacred hearth and his household gods, there the very center of his worship, religion, and domestic ritual.”

Back in the classroom, students went on to create their own Lares and a shrine for them, called a lararium.

All 70 Middle Schoolers traveled to the biomechanics lab at the University of Massachusetts recently to participate in a fitness study with UMass faculty and graduate students. Williston students were actively involved in generating, collecting, and analyzing data that scientists will use to refine our understanding of exercise and health.

“Kinesiology is an interdisciplinary field of study that allowed the students to see real science in action where biology, chemistry, and physics come together to investigate nature and find solutions to problems,” said science teacher Jane Lucia. “We could see and feel from the folks there that science is creative and collaborative, and fun!”

Ms. Lucia continued, “The uses of technology were eye-opening. From the special eye visors in the military lab to the life size virtual human cadaver in the anatomy and physiology lab, students experienced how embedded and valuable technology is to the advancement of ideas toward useful applications.”

Students from the Middle School also recently participated in Classics Day at Mount Holyoke College. Read about that here.