COLORADO ELEMENTARY

Scrubby Bear presented on the importance of hand washing to Colorado kindergarten classes of Mrs. Hines and Mrs. Schumaker. The presentation was sponsored by the American Red Cross.

GRANT ELEMENTARY

Third graders at Grant Elementary had a special guest reader... their custodian, Sue Phillips!

JEFFERSON ELEMENTARY

Jefferson Elementary appreciates our volunteers. If you are available daily, weekly, or monthly, we would love to have you helping to support our students!

4th grade art students in Mrs. Williams' art class say "No" to drugs!

Students in Mrs. Manjoine's 5th grade class prepared for and participated in mock interviews with their Junior Achievement volunteer, Tracy McGinnis from CBI Bank and Trust.

MADISON ELEMENTARY

Madison's Penny War raised money to help provide clothing for children in Haiti. Fourth grade students at Madison won the Penny War bringing in over 12,000 pennies!

Madison 5th grade Student Lighthouse members counting coins for their Penny War fundraiser for clothing for children in Haiti.

Students in Mrs. Reinier's kindergarten reading classes at Madison did a bean bag toss to letters. Students were then identifying letters, sounds, and using their Tucker Phonics.

Students in Mrs. Reinier's 1st grade reading class tossed bean bags to consonants and vowels to make CVC nonsense words. Once the student built the word, they had to read the nonsense word before building a new one. They did it with great success.

2nd graders in Mrs. Woods and Ms. Ward's classes at Madison Elementary celebrated the amazing author Roald Dahl!

After reading The BFG, by Roald Dahl, the second graders in Mrs. Woods' and Ms. Wards' classes at Madison made dream jars.

3rd grade students dissected owl pellets in Mrs. McGill and Mr. Stewart's classes.

Madison 5th graders played Battleship in PE!

MCKINLEY ELEMENTARY

Scrubby Bear presented to McKinley's kindergarten classes on the importance of hand washing. Scrubby Bear is sponsored by the American Red Cross.

Mrs. Strouf's first graders did pumpkin investigations this week! We weighed, measured, figured out the height and circumference and tested whether pumpkins sink or float!

We also synergized to come up with a design for our group pumpkin based off of our individual designs. Then we colored our pumpkin designs onto our pumpkins!!!

And then.... we got to DIG IN as a team to get the seeds out and practice counting them into groups of ten!!

MULBERRY ELEMENTARY

Mrs. Green's kindergarten class worked on Spin-a-Spider Math!

First graders in Mrs. Mergen's class have a big reason to celebrate today! At the beginning of the school year they set many reading goals. Each student tries to read at least 10 minutes at home every night, and then they total the minutes for everyone in the class at the end of every week. Their goal was to read 8,000 minutes by the end of the first quarter, but as a class they surpassed their goal and read over 9,500 minutes! To celebrate, they had a Read and Feed! To make it even more fun, they read their books by firelight with flashlights! Now they are working on their second quarter goal which is 10,000 minutes! Wish them luck!

This week, 2nd graders in Mrs. Lincoln's class did some pumpkin math. They estimated the weight, circumference, and the number of seeds inside the pumpkin. It was a fun fall lesson for everyone!

5th graders at Mulberry are learning fire safety from Rhonda Theobald of the Muscatine Fire Department.

WEST MIDDLE SCHOOL

The New Hancher Auditorium hosted a reception on Sunday, October 23rd to celebrate 7 Iowa Communities who participated and contributed their artwork. West Middle School had 9 students (Mycah Reiland, Ben Zigament, Bailee Mergen, Ryan Lukkarinen, Abbi Enriquez, Trea Thorn, Betsy Becker, Claire Recker and Allie Youngbauer) who have their face "selfies" permanently on the mural representing Muscatine. These students are now in 9th grade. Pictured is Betsy Becker standing next to her face on the mural.

West 6th Grade Project Lead the Way Class: Energy & the Environment built solar ovens. (Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate with cooking, so we had to improvise, but we still enjoyed our s'mores!!) A huge thank-you to businesses in town that supported our project!! Sal Vitale's & Pizza Ranch donated pizza boxes. Domino's donated BOTH pizza boxes & pizza coupons to our competition winners. Thanks so much, the kids loved building & testing their ovens!!

EAST CAMPUS

Students in Mr. Falkena's Environmental Science Class have been going out to the Bridgestone-Bandag prairie to do individual investigations for the past two weeks. Some students were trapping mammals to determine what species are present (and how to live-trap them). Some students were examining the presence of algae, the area of water available to the system, presence of nutrients in water and soils, etc. Lots of students have gotten to experience how scientists conduct field research in their respective research areas (and get their hands dirty!), and figure out how to communicate their findings to benefit a larger systems view of a study area. It has been a great experience with lots of learning!

The Service Learning class at East Campus spent the day volunteering at the Ronald McDonald House in Iowa City. We made the residents "puppy chow", cleaned, and helped cut out their Christmas ornaments for donations. We were also able to read the residents stories and interact with them. It was a great day had by all!!!

As part of another service learning project, East Campus students helped with a project for the City of Muscatine through Jon Koch, Director of the Water Pollution Control Plant.

MUSCATINE HIGH SCHOOL

Camilla McNeely attended the World Food Prize Global Youth Institute in Des Moines. This prestigious event chooses the top 200 students internationally to participate at the Global Institute based on their state level performance. During the event she heard from and interacted with World Food Prize Laureates and discussed pressing food security and agricultural issues with national and international experts. Highlights included listening to Joyce Banda, the former president of Malawi speak, meeting Liam Condon, the President of Crop Science at Bayer and participating in the Oxfam Hunger Banquet. Camilla hopes that other students choose this opportunity in the future.

Human Anatomy & Physiology students in Mr. Johnson's class polished their artistic abilities drawing, labeling, and describing the alimentary canal in a competitive small group review game. They also investigated the propulsive functions of smooth muscle in the digestive system with a modeling lab.

The initiation of the MHS Aquarium Club is underway. 24 students joined the club, which helps students develop a greater appreciation for a lifelong hobby, explore career paths in animal care related fields, and discuss man's impact on the biomes that typically house the animals cared for in the club.

FFA National Results: Extemporaneous Speaking: Tiffany Tomlin- Silver rating; Environmental Science: Finished Silver Rating- finished 19th overall- (Ben Bloechl, Avery Kwirant, David Cardoza, Carter Oldfield; Nursery-Landscape: Finished 11th- Gold Rating- Molly Haller was 2nd High Individual Overall in the contest. She was top Individual in Nursery-Landscape Production, other team members were Jose Gonzalez, Tyree Anfinson, and J.T. Manjoine.

This week twenty-five Model United Nations students attended the Iowa Youth Symposium at the State Capitol in Des Moines. They joined 250 students from around the state to develop resolutions on pressing world issues: free and fair elections, climate refugees, species extinction, and intellectual property rights. During committee sessions, students interacted in round table discussions with experts, participated in two-days of debates, and ultimately wrote a proposal that will now go onto the United Nations headquarters in New York City. In celebration of United Nations Day, students also had the opportunity to hear from John Lange, a UN Ambassador for Global Health Diplomacy. Saul Ocampo received recognition as an Outstanding Delegate in the Science Committee, and Christa Colony was honored as an Outstanding Delegate in the Social Committee.

In Chemistry, Mr. Bobay, Mrs. Dicken, Ms. Kramer, Mrs. Walker, and Mrs. Hardy's classes watched a demonstration of the aggressiveness of the transfer of valence electrons between Sodium (Na) and Water (H2O) by dropping some of the alkali metal into water which creates a fun explosive reaction as seen in the pictures below.

In physics students created water wheels using various materials with a goal of raising a 100 gram mass a foot at the fastest rate of speed. The best time we had was 5.33 seconds. Below are Mrs. Walker's classes showing off their various designs.

In Mrs. Walker's Earth Science class the students created a 58 meter scale of our solar system in the AA Hall at the High School. One image is looking from the sun out to Pluto. The scale was 1.47 meters = 1 au , and Pluto is 39.4 au's (57.92 meters) from the sun, while Earth is only 1.00 au (1.47 meters) from the sun. The second image is looking from Pluto back towards the Sun. We even had some students act as the asteroid belt that separates inner and outer planets.