Revolutionary! The Seventh Grade Visits Lexington and Concord

Mr. Andruchow and Mr. McLaughlin took the 7th Grade Civics class to Lexington & Concord, Massachusetts on Friday, October 26. The class first visited Lexington (pictured), taking in the historic sites of Battle Green, the statue of Captain John Parker, and Buckman Tavern. They then went up the road to North Bridge, seeing Paul Revere's capture point and Meriam Corner along the way. Once they were at the bridge, the 7th graders hiked up to the Militia's vantage point atop Punkatasset Hill and reflected on what it would have been like to be at that very spot on that fateful day of April 19, 1775.

Campus Looking Good!

 We're working on three stories revolving around what students are doing this week, all three of which will be up in the next week and a half. In the meantime, we'd point your attention to a story that ran last Friday on the PCD website. The story covered the recent updates to the PCD campus and served as an update to a story we posted earlier about the summer's Lund renovations. The new campus updates include the brand new fitness center, which opened today, and a preview of the community service day for cleaning up the new nature trail behind Lund. In addition to the first link above, you can also take a look at some pictures from the fitness center below. 

About Alumni: Soccer Star Allie Gnys

Allie Gnys '10 being launched at
an incoming ball.

After they graduate, Knights frequently continue their athletic pursuits. Many play in college and afterward, whether on varsity, club, or recreational teams. Alumni frequently cite the desire to play the game in any capacity as one of the school's culture's great gifts. A PCD baseball career, for instance, might be followed by four years on a college team and later in a local rec league.

Occasionally, however, alumni jump to new sports entirely. In the case of Allison Gnys '10, currently a junior in the nursing program at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT, college presented an opportunity to try something she had never previously considered. Allie, as she is known to her friends, is in her second year as a starting lock on Quinnipiac’s NCAA Division I Rugby Team. She is a grizzled veteran on the Bobcats, which, in only its second year of existence, has relied on athletes converting from other sports.



 

In (or Out) of the Classroom: Microarthropods!!

PCD seniors investigating the woods behind Lund

One of the ongoing projects at Providence Country Day is to make great use of the outdoor space. The school sits on a beautiful campus, offering opportunities to athletes and nature lovers alike. Of course, it is also a great spot to learn about the natural world and humans' impact on it. One group investigating just that is Ms. Hanover's Environmental Science class. The class, open to seniors, provides a rigorous study of the science of the natural world.

They scanned the forest floor for microarthropods

Recently, the class has been outside in the area behind Lund Hall, which is also the site of a future nature trail. The students have been conducting a biodiversity study of microarthropods on the forest floor. Arthropods, for those whose grasp of zoology isn't quite what it used to be, are invertebrate animals with exoskeletons, segmented bodies, and jointed appendages. We see them all the time: insects, arachnids, and crustaceans are all arthropods. But they are not limited to mosquitoes, spiders, and lobster. As the Environmental Science class has learned, they can be quite small and live in great numbers on the forest floor.

They bagged their findings, bringing it back to the lab for
further research

Although the woods might have at first appeared uninteresting to the group of seniors that have spent years looking at them, there is no doubt that PCD's natural area is home to a wide array of wildlife. And the activity served as a powerful reminder to the students that, sometimes, the learning inside the classroom is no more important than the learning outside of it.  

Meet a Knight: Photographer Jo Sittenfeld

Ms. Sittenfeld snapping a photo.

Our series "Meet a Knight" features discussions with members of the PCD community. We are beginning the year by speaking with the faculty and staff who are new to the school this year. After starting with college counselor Terry Ward last week, today's chat is with Art Teacher Jo Sittenfeld.

Ms. Sittenfeld actually joined PCD last spring, so this marks her first full school year at 660 Waterman Ave. She is a woman who wears many hats. At PCD she teaches photography and digital media. She also works as an adjunct professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she currently teaches a range of photography classes and in RISD's "Project Open Door," an after-school program aimed at getting high school students interested in art. She somehow manages to take photographs for her own work, which she has exhibited all over the country. You can find her around PCD every day, either teaching a class or shooting photos of our busy students.

@PCD: Hi Jo, thank you so much for talking with us. How did you get into photography?

JS: Well I feel like my mom actually steered me--she would always get me these biographies of Margaret Bourque-White and all these pioneering women photographers when I was around eight. But when I was in college I took a photo class. I'd always loved art and art history, and thought it was this side thing I would do, and that I would be an English major or a science major or something like that. But during my sophomore year I took a photo class and it sort of changed my world and my life, and ever since then I have been doing photography steadily. I was an Art and Art History major and got my teaching certification, and from there taught high school art before I came to RISD and got my MFA in photography. It's always been this balance between making art and teaching it, which for me is a really good balance.