Eighth Graders Build Engineering Skills and Prepare for Solar Car Race
Eighth grade students at Mount Madonna School are developing engineering skills in preparation for building their own solar cars to race at the 6th annual Summit for the Planet Walk-a-thon and Celebration on April 28.
The class began a three-week engineering unit involving experiments and activities designed to give them an intrinsic understanding of engineering basics, electricity, solar panel placement, circuitry, fluid dynamics, gear ratios, Newtonian mechanics, and experimental design.
Graceful arched bridges, a three-headed dragon, samurai warriors, a family of mice, taiko drums, and stories of children’s everyday lives all have a role in Mount Madonna School’s (MMS) annual Cultural Awareness Performance on March 30. This popular event – which showcases elementary students’ dramatic talents and creativity– is the culmination of several months of focused study on a particular world culture: this year, the island nation of Japan.
Into a tall, clear glass cylindrical container, about a third full with tap water and dishwashing detergent, Mount Madonna School (MMS) parent John Wagner using metal tongs drops a small chunk of dry ice. “We’re here to talk about things that are cold,” he tells the gathered third and fourth grade MMS students. Dry ice, Wagner says, is frozen carbon dioxide and has a temperature of 123 degrees below zero.
The Mount Madonna School Creative Writing Reading is an annual event where students, faculty, parents and friends gather together to listen to our student writers read. This year we will gather on Friday, March 8 at 7:00pm to listen to open letters, villanelles, short stories, sestinas, sonnets, monologues, first person narratives and other inspired forms of writing. 
“Education can take many forms,” commented guest panelist and physical chemist Tycho Speaker, during Mount Madonna School’s 3rd annual Career Forum last week. “What’s important is to find your passion, and work as hard as you have to toward realizing it. Then the education will come on its own, whether that takes the form of a degree or just life experience.”
For nonprofit organizations, determining how to creatively and successfully meet annual fundraising goals can be difficult and time-consuming – and frequently not a lot of fun. With the dual intent of putting the “fun” back in “fundraising” and bringing together other local nonprofit organizations – including, educational, environmental, and youth-focused groups – Mount Madonna School (MMS) is again hosting its annual community walk-a-thon and celebration –a family event intended to make fundraising as easy as a walk in the park!.jpg)
Recently the junior and senior classes at Mount Madonna School had the opportunity to interview John Laird, California’s Secretary for Natural Resources. Each year as part of their Values in World Thought course, students engage in conversations with individuals working for change, and through these dialogues the students come to better understand their world, country, community and selves..jpg)
Sitting near containers filled with assorted plastic K’Nex and Lego Mindstorm pieces, two seventh grade girls laugh as they put the finishing touches on their robot creation, and joke about what to name it. Nearby, other students concentrate on working with the program software and syncing it to correctly control their robot.
What: Presentation and DVD screening on the Western Burrowing Owl, subject of Mount Madonna School’s 5th Grade Class current environmental project.
