Wipe Out 2014

Here are some videos and photos from Monday Night's Wipe Out Events:


Additional footage from Monday night can be seen on the LA Winterim YouTube Channel.

Come Sail Away with Me

Remember those song lyrics, "Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me . . ." - it's playing in my head as I think about the Adventures in Sailing Winterim who left at 3:00 a.m. this morning (Tuesday) for St. Martin in the Caribbean.

Currently the weather on St. Martin is 90 degrees and partly cloudy! We hope they arrived safely. 

To stay updated on their adventures visit the blog being kept by the organization who is working with them, Broadreach.  There is also a  link to the right which will take you directly to the Adventures in Sailing blog page.

Building & Teaching in the Dominican

 

The Dominican Service Project group left on Monday, March 3, at 2:30 AM and arrived in the Dominican Republic. This morning, Ms. MacMeekin sent an update about the group:

Yesterday's travel went as smoothly as it possibly could have and we arrive in Puerto Plata 45 min early!  Last night was spent getting to know each other, settling in and getting acclimated to our new surroundings.  This morning we began working with the Mariposa Foundation and are working on several projects including: building a stand that will be used to sell smoothies and fresh fruit, teaching piano and English to some of the girls, and taking inventory of the incredible amount of donations they have received. 

Below is a picture of students in the group building a wall for the stands to help the Mariposa Foundation:

Peeling Back the Layers of Woodworking

Students in the Turn, Baby, Turn! Winterim have started working on the lathe, experimenting with cutting scrap wood before they move on to each of their projects. Types of projects range from a wooden goblet to a baseball bat. Lathe work consists of putting a sharp tool against a spinning piece of wood and slowly taking off layers of wood in order to shape the wood the way you want it.




Lathe work requires a delicate touch and a sharp eye for detail.  Students will learn how to create hand crafted and high quality works that they can use everyday. We will see later on how their projects turn out and how much they have learned about lathe work.
                    

The Not So Scary Start to the Revenge of The Horror, The Horror!

 
On the first day of Winterim, students in the Revenge of The Horror, The Horror! started planning their movies by searching for possible sets for the movies they will film and edit during the next two weeks. Searching for locations to film the movie also allowed for students to find inspiration for the plots of their movies. Students also viewed clips from different horror movies on the first day, in order to see the different aspects of movies that have to be taken into consideration when filming and editing.

Yesterday (Monday) students also sat together in small groups in order to discuss ideas that they had for possible scenes of their movies.

Today, after some further brainstorming at the school, the Revenge of The Horror, The Horror! Winterim group will be heading to the NE Studios, a sound studio in Devens, MA.

Eventually the group will be producing several horror films, each utilizing on-camera visual effects such as fake blood and prosthetic body parts.

The Game of Writing begins for Sports Journalism

Sports Journalism started their Winterim activities yesterday (Monday) with an introduction to the Winterim. Today, students in Sports Journalism will beginning writing articles in order to practice the journalist aspect of the Winterim program.

The articles that students write during Winterim can be found on the Sports Journalism Blog.

This afternoon students will be visiting the Boston Globe in order to see the workings of a news company and what professional sports reporters do in their daily work routines.

Students in the Sports Journalism will be attending three professional sports games this week in order to have a first hand experience of reporting on a live sports game. On Tuesday  Sports Journalism will be attending a Bruins game and on Wednesday they will be going to see the Celtics.

Next week the Sports Journalism group will be heading to New York City in order to report on the Big East Tournament.

A Hand Made Craft That Floats

Students in the Build Your Own Kayak Winterim have made a lot of progress in just one day. They are already on to the water-proofing step of the process, having already built the frames of their kayaks. This process, which consists of putting a mixture of epoxy and flour that has a consistency of peanut butter over every crack of the boat, takes a long time to carry out. Even after all of the cracks are filled, it still takes days for the mixture to cure. This process of building a kayak is one not commonly used since it takes a much longer time than what more industrial methods have presented, but the process carried out by these students teaches them the importance of hand made crafts and that sometimes, even the more old-school methods can be the most rewarding. For daily updates and to find out more about this Winterim project, check out their blog here.

The Art of a Critic

Everyone's a Critic (EAC) Winterim began on Sunday by attending the Boston Ballet's production of Close to Chuck.  They are continuing their art infusion by visiting museums and other displays of fine and performing art around the region.  Today (Tuesday), they are in Hanover, NH.

EAC at Boston Ballet on Sunday afternoon

Here is a list of  places and performances for this week:

• Isabella Steward Gardner Museum, Boston, MA
• Hood Museum, Hanover, NH
• Hopkins Center for the Arts, Hanover, NH
• Spring Quartet with Esperanza Spaulding Performance
• Witness Uganda at A.R.T., Cambridge, MA
• Final Cut performance, Oberon Show at A.R.T.
• ICA, Boston
• Actor's Shakespeare Project, Somerville, MA
• The Cherry Orchard performance at Actor's Shakespeare Project

Read the news directly from this group by visiting their own blog.  You can also reach it from this site by clicking on the link to the right that says Everyone's a Critic.

A Plane, A Backwards Moving Bus, and A Speed Boat

What do these have in common? The Underwater Discovery group used all three to travel to their island off the coast of Belize yesterday.  Mr. Brescia sent us a report of the day (see below) and beautiful photo. (Yes, they were swimming at sunset while those in NE bundled up for the brutal cold!)

Departing from Logan Airport at 5:40 AM on Day 1 (March 3), Mr. Johnson and I settled into our seats on American Airlines flight 1429 happy with how all 17 students enrolled in Underwater Discovery 2014 had arrived at the Schoolhouse so that we could leave on time! Our connecting flight in Miami landed in Belize City, where many sleep-deprived aspiring SCUBA divers lined up to speak with customs officers, and, by 1:30 EST, everyone was on the sidewalk waiting for our ride to the coast. After sorting out the only snafu of the day devoted to traveling, we boarded a bus for a three-hour ride, which began on the two-lane George Price Highway, heading west toward Guatemala, and continued south along Hummingbird Highway, at times squeezing across some very narrow bridges. Quickly, we learned that Belize's towns command respect from motorists thanks to their "sleeping policemen," the speed bumps that bring traffic nearly to standstill. Along the way, after noting how many houses stood on stilts, we passed the Belize City Zoo, countless general stores, Coca-Cola stands, acres and acres of fragrant orange groves and at least two plants producing juice for export. 

With approximately 30 minutes remaining to that trip, the driver slowed the bus to a stop, with the bus pointed downhill, and then took his foot off the brake. Mysteriously, the white school bus slowly moved backwards (uphill) because, explained, of a strong magnetic pull at that location. He explained that this phenomenon was discovered by workers who first laid the surface of this main thoroughfare. Finally, we arrived at the docks, and within minutes we were knifing through the ocean in a race with another speed boat carrying our luggage to our final destination, the South Water Caye (pronounced "key") Marine Field Station, which shares an island with the Smithsonian. That bumpy but exciting ride lasted about 40 minutes. Before sitting down to a wonderful dinner of meatloaf and pasta with an Alfredo sauce, everyone dipped into the ocean before dinner with me impersonating a lifeguard. The day ended officially with Richard, a member of the management staff, presenting a short video about the field station and then offering comments to highlight the importance of conserving energy and especially water. Unofficially, the students lounged on the dock looking for phosphorescent squid and decompressing from a day of new sights and experiences.

Tomorrow (Tuesday), the SCUBA-related instruction begins! Katie Laughlin and Caroline Cort have already volunteered to post our next report, and the other pairs of students will follow suit.