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Last Friday, the Upper School held its annual Clubs Fair. A wide variety was represented, and it felt like there was something for everyone! During the fair, students engaged with club leaders, explored new interests, learned about new opportunities, and signed up! New clubs this year include the Balloon Animal Club, the Archives Club, the Ethiopian/Eritrean Affinity Group, and the PreMed Club. Thank you to our student leaders who put great thought into our robust list of clubs and affinity/alliance groups this year. Check out the gallery.
Sustainability and Climate Change students traveled to the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of a unit on sustainable land use. At the museum, students studied artwork that helped shape the way we think about land and the concept of wilderness, including Thomas Moran’s The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which has been called “the painting that inspired a national park.”
The College Counseling Office hosted the following colleges at Potomac’s first mini-fair of the season: The American University of Paris, Bryant University, Clemson University, Davidson College, Drexel University, Elon University, George Mason University, Marist College, Mississippi State University, Sewanee: The University of the South, Spelman College, Tulane University, The University of Georgia, and The University of Iowa.
All had representation at the fair. More than 100 US students dropped by the US Crossroads to learn about these institutions and chat with admissions representatives. It was an informative and energetic event! Check out the gallery.
Grades 10 and 11 began their year of service together last week as part of our Community Action Day Service Learning program. In advisory groups, students learned about, selected, and visited one of 23 local community partners across the DMV over the two days. Following their morning of service in the broader community, students returned to campus and participated in different “Campus Connections Projects,” which offered an opportunity to continue serving others in our own campus community. Some students chose to serve our school community by organizing the Potomac Archives, preparing games for Fall Frolics, preserving a recently cut oak tree on campus with Sean Conroy, or playing with Lower School students. Check out galleries from grade 10 and grade 11.
Many thanks to our community partners for hosting our students and for educating them on the important work they do in the community and the ongoing needs they address. Learn more about our partnerships in the community.
This week, the Class of 2024 completed and presented their senior projects. The students worked on these during the month of May, sharing their progress in small groups once a week. At the conclusion of their projects, all of our graduates shared their work with their peers and faculty, effectively communicating what they learned, the challenges they overcame, and their hopes for future endeavors in presentations earlier this week. Lola Monroe, Laith Weimer, Nat Estes, Rachel Robbins, Mackenzie Fulgham, and Cole Griswold were selected to present at this year's Senior Project Showcase. Their projects included teaching in the Lower School, internships on Capitol Hill, research for a synagogue, and music production.
The Class of 2024 is an accomplished, creative, and hard-working group. Their diversity of skills and interests was reflected in their projects and included interning at a real estate development firm, creating unique works of art, supporting repairs and improvements to our campus, filming a documentary on the spring musical – Hairspray, coaching various teams on and off campus, training as a guide at Manassas Battlefield, shadowing health care providers, contributing to the work of a number of community partners, and running and writing about an experiment documenting the switch from a smart to a flip phone. Great job, class of 2024! You have so much to offer.
SERC 10 students recently presented their research proposals. Students spent the past few months reading peer-reviewed journal articles, learning about their topics, and developing a research question to address a scientific issue that has yet to be answered. Proposals covered topics such as dietary changes to prevent colorectal cancer; the creation of apps and devices to enrich the lives of people with such ailments as lung disease, heart arrhythmia or apraxia of speech; the use of AI to study topics such as autoimmune diseases, upper limb prosthetics and antibiotic resistance; and designing enzymes, hydrogels or nanoparticles that can treat such issues as diabetes, degradation of plastics and the prevention of skin cancer.