The District 16 Education Council will be making public its recommendation to the Minister of Education on "Policy 409 - School Sustainability Review", on Tuesday May 3, 2011 at 6:30 pm at James. M. Hill Memorial High School (Theatre). The D.E.C. would like to thank all who participated in the consultation process.
The Miramichi Young Professionals and Involved Entrepreneurs (MYPIE) recently recognized Miramichi Rural School Teacher Mr. Adam Hayward as the organization’s “Professional of the Year”. Although teaching for fewer than 5 years Mr. Hayward has an impressive record in education, inside and outside the classroom.
An enthusiastic group of District 16 science students took their research work to Fredericton on Friday April 15 for the River Valley Regional Science Fair. Seven project entries from Middle and High School were presented to the judges and four were recognized with medals. In the junior category Jenny McEathron (“Slip Sliding Away” - Dr. Losier Middle) as well as Alex Hallihan and Riley Donovan (Gravel vs Sand - Blackville School) received bronze medals while Lindsay Jay-Keating (“No Bull About it” - Harkins Middle) was awarded gold.
So say the Rotary Interact Clubs of Miramichi Valley and James M. Hill high schools and they used this as a title for the benefit event they organized and held Thursday April 14 to raise money and awareness to support the recovery process in Japan, following that country’s recent devastating events. The well attended concert program, put together through a joint effort between the two city schools, included performance by students and members of the Miramichi community as well as informative student presentations on earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear energy power station disasters.
The District 16 Spelling Bee was held Friday last at Croft Elementary School with a total of 100 participants from kindergarten to grade 8. The respective winners are: Kindergarten - Rayann Hussein Gretna Green, Grade 1 - Dustin Stewart Millerton, Grade 2 - Griffin Doucet Croft, Grade 3 - Travis Stewart Millerton, Grade 4 - Isaac Tozer Croft, Grade 5 - Aiyana Augustine Croft, Grade 6 - James MacMillan – Millerton, Grade 7 - Kristen Trevors - Dr. Losier and Grade 8 - Nathaniel Pitcher - NSER.
Schools throughout District 16 have held their annual science fairs for 2011 and their schools’ top projects have moved on to the district level expositions which were held over the last two weeks. The judges at the district fairs have been very pleasantly surprised and impressed with the quality of the student research. Many of the questions investigated were the result of student curiosity. The experiments designed were well thought out, variables were identified, controlled and tested for. Conclusions were drawn based on the evidence.
A video conference with Dr. Victoria Hipkin of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) was an eye opening experience for grade 5 students at Gretna Green Elementary School this past Friday. Dr. Hipkin, a science specialist with CSA, was able to talk “face to face” with the students and answer their questions regarding earth’s atmosphere, planets and conditions on the moon. She also led the students through an experiment that attempted to duplicate conditions on the surface of Mars, which taught that many of the geological processes on planet Earth are also at work on the “Red Planet”.