Sherry Lapointe works to raise awareness about Ovarian Cancer

Sherry Lapointe is a twenty year veteran Occupational Therapist for the Yarmouth schools. Sherry has been working tirelessly to share information about her battle with ovarian cancer in order to raise awareness, and educate our community and state about this disease. 

September is Ovarian Cancer awareness month. Teal is the color of Ovarian Cancer awareness; TEAL stands for Take Early Action and Live. The HMS staff joined Sherry's efforts and wore the color teal every Friday in September in recognition of the awareness campaign. The boys' soccer team sponsored an Ovarian Cancer Awareness game on Saturday, September 27th. 

We thank Sherry for all she's doing to raise awareness about ovarian cancer. Please see the information, photos, and Forecaster article below to learn more about Sherry's efforts, and our community's involvement with this cause.  

From Susan Robbins: 

YHS Students, District Staff & Coaches,
The boys soccer team is sponsoring a Ovarian Cancer Awareness game this Saturday Night vs. Waynflete at 6:00 p.m. September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness month and Teal is the color of Ovarian Cancer Awareness, it stands for Take Early Action and Live.

A portion of the gate receipts will go directly to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund to fund research, support awareness events, advocate for better ovarian cancer screenings and treatment, and provide education and information for all those who seek it. A donation box will be set up at the gate for additional donations to the fund. Our boys soccer players will be wearing teal shoe laces during the game, we hope you will join us and wear TEAL to the game! For more information please visit www.ocrf.org or www.ovarian.org.

Did you know? Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death women with any of the gynecologic cancers. In women age 35-74, ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related deaths. An estimated one woman in 71 will develop ovarian cancer during her lifetime. The American Cancer Society estimates that there will be over 22,000 new cases of ovarian cancer diagnosed this year and that more than 15,000 women will die from ovarian cancer this year.

When one is diagnosed and treated in the earliest stages, the 5-year survival rate is over 90%. Due to ovarian cancer's non-specific symptoms and lack of early detection tests, only 19% of all cases are found at this early stage. If caught in stage III or higher, the survival rate can be as low as 30.6%.

Because there is no reliable screening test, fewer than 20% of cases are caught at early stages.
Symptoms of the disease seem similar to many other conditions: 

• Bloating/swelling of the abdomen or sudden weight gain
• Persistent abdominal or pelvic pain or pressure

• Difficulty eating or feeling full quickly 

• Increased need to empty the bladder

EARLY detection increases survival rate. The lack of public awareness and education about ovarian cancer is an important issue in our society today and impacts our mothers, daughters, aunts, sisters, friends, etc. For more information please visit www.ocrf.org or www.ovarian.org. 

Sherry and her husband Gary with Yarmouth Captains

 Link to Forecaster article
http://www.theforecaster.net/news/sports/2014/09/28/waynflete-rallies-tie-yarmouth- ovarian-cancer-awar/211346 

Sherry with the HMS staff

 

Elaine Fletcher's work featured in MECA art show

Elaine Fletcher, HMS art teacher for grades 5 through 8, shared the following information about an exciting art show that opens today (Friday, 10.3), at the Maine College of Art in Portland. 

Elaine will have an oil on canvas (18X18) painting in the show, titled September Afternoon, Jericho Bay. Elaine created this picture from a view captured at the 2013 Maine Art Education Association's Fall Conference at Haystack.

The art show features works in different media by Maine art teachers, and runs from now until October 26th at the Zand Head, and Hall Galleries at MECA, 522 Congress Street, Portland. The show provides is a wonderful perspective on the way Maine art educators, "Practice what they preach", and a great chance for educators to offer their work for viewing and sale to the public.

September Afternoon, Jericho Bay

First Friday Artwalk takes place tonight, 10.3, from , 5-8 PM; it's a great night out in the city!

6th Grade STEAM students launch into the new school year

 Mr. Dehetre shared the following information about an exciting project:

 

Sixth grade students in Mr. Dehetre's STEAM lab began the school year by building solid propellant rockets from scratch. The photographs below show students making the parachutes for their rockets' safe recoveries. Once built, students will launch their rockets in Winslow field. Rocketry is just one of several activities that support our students' learning about gravity, trajectory, and tribology (the study of friction.)

Color by PTO

Thank you to the PTO for purchasing tie-dye supplies for the 8th grade! Students tied their own shirts (and we made a few extra for any new students who move to Yarmouth throughout the school year). We dyed all 150 last week - a different color for each homeroom class.  This is a unique experience in the middle school for 8th grade students that they look forward to at the start of each year. It is an excellent team building activity! 

The 8th grade students and teachers wear the tie-dye shirts periodically throughout the year on field trips and other 8th grade activities.  Many high school students still wear their tie-dye t-shirts from years ago!  Last Friday the 8th grade wore the shirts on the walking tour of Main Street in Yarmouth.  On Friday, September 26th, the 8th grade students will be wearing their t-shirts at Popham Beach for our Coastal Cleanup field trip.

School supplies for St. Bahkita

Paula Vicenzi provided this wonderful update on our sister school in St. Bahkita, Uganda (please see previous posts on May 28th, '12, November 13th, '12, April 13th, '13, May 15th, '13, and November 9th, '13  to learn about the history of our relationship with St. Bahkita).

HMS students participated in a LifeTouch school fundraiser last last spring. Lifetouch donated $2.00  to HMS for every student who had their picture taken, regardless of whether the pictures were purchased. As a result of this effort, we donated $772.00 to the St. Bahkita School to be used for school supplies.

Charlie Roscoe, founder of Schools for Refugees (http://schoolsforrefugees.org/), sent the pictures below showing the teachers and students with their new school supplies. We'll keep you updated on news from St. Bahkita throughout the year.

The Summer Library Experience at HMS

 Please check out the information below about our summer library hours, shared by HMS Librarian, Merry Stuhr. Our library was a busy place over the summer months, thanks to these special opportunities for our students to visit, relax, and read in the cool comfort of our beautiful library!

Summer in Maine means beaches, barbecues, camps, and much more.  For students at HMS, it also includes open library times at the HMS Library!  Every other Wednesday during the summer, the HMS Library opens it doors to give all our students, from incoming fifth graders through outgoing eighth graders, an opportunity to check out books or to simply hang out with friends and read!  This is made extra special by being exclusively for our students.  (The Merrill Memorial Library is a great place for a family library experience.)   

For students who can't make it in, there's always the HMS Library's collection of eBooks on OverDrive, available 24/7.  All they'll need is an eReading device like a Kindle, Nook, iPod, smartphone, etc., and internet access to initially download the book for a two-week loan period. (Login asks for library card number, which is their HMS Library number, and PIN, which is last name, all lower case.) 

There is one last afternoon that the HMS Library will be open this summer, and it's just around the corner:  Wednesday, August 20, from 2:00 - 4:00. Students may pop in to quickly check out books, or they may stay for the full two hours.  May you enjoy reading......all year long!

 Incoming fifth graders enjoying the new HMS Library "comfy" chairs recently obtained with a grant from the Yarmouth Education Foundation.

Mike Arsenault blogs about Project-Based Learning

Mike Arsenault, HMS Instructional Technology Integrator, was asked to do a guest blog post on the EdWeek blog Finding Common Ground. His piece was posted on June 13th. Please see Mike's thoughts on this subject below:

Project-Based Learning: Connecting With Your Community

By Peter DeWitt on June 13, 2014 7:25 AM

Today's guest blog is written by Mike Arsenault, Instructional Technology Integrator at Frank H. Harrison Middle School inYarmouth, Maine.
 

 These engaging tools surround us, and have the potential to change how we interact with one another, but more importantly, the community at large. Classrooms and learning opportunities within those classrooms are becoming more and more collaborative. Student collaboration typically happens student-to-student, student to teacher, and student to community.
We can't forget the community. The community connections can be local people or anyone in the world with tools like Skype, Google+ Hangouts, email, phone calls and more. The community offers us support, but also can provide students with important insight into what is needed as they enter the workforce. The relationships created between students and the community may even inspire community members to learn from students and become more innovative.

In the last few months I have been fortunate to see some great student presentations of exemplary projects. Frank Harrison Middle School (Yarmouth, ME) was a national finalist in this year's Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest. As part of this contest we presented our work alongside the other 14 finalists at the SXSWedu conference. As I watched the presentations I noticed that each one included collaboration with outside experts in their community.

A few months later our students were invited to present at the 2014 Maine STEM Ecology Summit. Once again...as I watched other schools present their work I noticed that these projects included partnerships, typically with local universities and colleges.

This year we have placed an emphasis on creating opportunities for our students to work with people outside of the school. This started in December as we took part in the Hour of Code activities. The Hour of Code initiative was started by Code.org and backed by many companies and celebrities. Its focus is to demystify computer science and to create an opportunity for students to gain exposure to writing computer code using online tutorials during Computer Science Education Week. We contacted local companies to request that they share their coders to work with our students as they completed the tutorials. To build excitement for the project several of these professionals visited our Math classrooms the week before Hour of Code and spoke with our students about their jobs and what they did on a day-to-day basis.

The project we completed for the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest exploring the effects of an invasive species, the European Green Crab, is having on the Maine coastline was also a great example of students working with outside experts. As we started the project a European Green Crab Summit was scheduled in Maine. Our students went through the list of presenters to learn about their research. We contacted each of the presenters and requested that they meet with our students to help them with their work. As our group worked on the project they were connected with: three university professors doing cutting edge research, our town manager and the president of the Maine Clammers Association.

After seeing the great presentations at the 2014 Maine STEM Ecology Summit I tweeted how impressed I was with them. I received a reply asking, "Rural schools have a difficult time doing this and being a part of programs...advice?" My advice to teachers looking to add external partnerships within their schools is simple... ask for help.

Most people in industry and higher education are excited about what they do and enjoy sharing their expertise with K-12 students. When you ask have a good idea of what you want from your partners. People are much more willing to help you if they have a clear idea of your expectations.
Teachers must also be willing to meet with these individuals at a place where they are comfortable. In our experience with the European Green Crab project our students met with some of our external partners face to face. Other partners due to distances away from our school were not willing to travel to work with our students. We used tools like Skype, Google+ Hangouts and simple audio only phone calls depending on the tech savviness of each partner. These people are helping you so you must be accommodating to their needs.

Connecting students with outside experts can create a much more powerful and real learning experience for your students. Experts in the field bring their experiences to our students in ways most classroom teachers cannot. That connection to a unit of study will increase student engagement and make the learning much more long lasting. It takes time to cultivate these connections but the time is well worth it.
Connect with Mike on Twitter.