If you get lost in a park or forest, and you lose mobile service, you better hope one of the WIS Grade 4 students is with you! After their recent orienteering trip, they are now expert map readers and compass users.

“I’m officially resigning from love!”

So began Pablo Cartaya’s presentation to Grade 6 students on April 26. Pablo, an award-winning author, actor, and public speaker, came to WIS to share his writing process and talk about his personal journey of identity, diversity, and acceptance through writing.

As part of their study of the transdisciplinary theme “Where We Are in Place and Time,” Grade 3 students and teachers spent a few months exploring how migration can transform human beings and communities, with a special focus on refugees. The students heard migration stories from some of their peers’ parents; they read other first-hand accounts from refugees around the world; and, they spent time trying to imagine what it would be like to move to a new place with only the clothes on their backs.

While our Grade 8 students are off on their language trips during the week before Spring Break, students in Grades 6 and 7 have the opportunity to participate in Minimester, a week full of workshops to examine topics not typically covered in the Middle School curriculum.

On February 21, Dorothy Nelson and Ye’Amlak Zegeye (Grade 11) spent their day at WMATA’s Greenbelt rail yard, taking part in a program designed to introduce young women to the field of engineering. Ben Titus ‘02, a mechanical engineer for LTK Engineering Services, helped to facilitate the program as part of National Engineers Week. Joining the WIS students were three girls from Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, MD.