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in Upper School, Athletics

Competition Cheer Squad Takes Home 2nd Place!

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This past Saturday, our PCA Competition Cheer team traveled to Columbia, SC to compete at Hammond School. The competition was fierce, and many schools from around the state were represented. Our girls took Second Place in our division! Way to go, girls! It was exciting to also see former PCA cheerleaders Catherine Cave and Grace Nason drive in from college to show their support! The team has a busy week ahead, as they prepare for the State Competition in Sumter, SC on Thursday, followed by a trip to Bamberg to cheer on the Eagles as they face Andrew Jackson on Friday night. These girls work so hard. It's awesome to see them bring home another trophy!

Cheer coach Rachel Tisdale had this to share with the girls, "I really want y'all to know how genuinely proud of you I am. Y'all never cease to amaze me and not just in terms of how you perform but also your character. Despite setbacks, y'all are determined to do your very best and you shine every time. We're going into our last week together as the 2019 PCA competition team, and I can honestly say there's nothing you could have done to make this season better. You can close out this season with no regrets. I love each and every one of you for who are and what you bring to this team. I am blessed because of you!"

 

Posted by Laura Broach with
in Trips, Lower School, Upper School, Academics

STEM Trip For 7th Graders: Visiting The DNR

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The seventh graders enjoyed an educational field trip last Friday to the Department of Natural Resources. It was such a cold day, but the students were excited to have some hands-on activities to keep them moving! We divided into two groups, and the staff helped the groups with two neat tasks. First, we discussed the concept of "decomposition rate." A staff member passed out lots of items, from an apple core, to a paper towel, to a glass bottle, to an aluminum can. The students were then told to stand up and order them from the least amount of time an item would take to decompose, to the longest amount of time to decompose. What an eye opener! Did you know it takes 2-4 weeks for a paper towel to decompose? And 200 years for an aluminum can to decompose? And how about as much as 600 years for a glass bottle to decompose?
 
Before we moved to the second activity, the students looked through microscopes at samples of the water right outside the Department of Natural Resources facility.  
We couldn't believe that in almost every sample, we saw microplastics! The activity really made us think about what happens to the "trash" we discard near our waterways! 
The last activity was super cool: dissecting a squid! The students had to first identify the external parts of the mollusk, extract the mouth and esophagus (Ewww!), determine if theirs was a male or female, and then cut out the gills! This was not for the faint of heart! The students did an excellent job! Thank you to Mrs. Moser for organizing the field trip, and for the chaperones and seventh grade faculty for making the day possible!
 
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