Sam the Samson showed up at Ironwood on Tuesday! He greeted the 8th grade students, and each student received a GCC t-shirt. Thanks, Sam!
On Friday May 24th, the 6th grade went on a field trip to release the three sturgeon we’ve been raising in our classroom since October. They started out each weighing about 10 grams, when we released them they had grown to about 270 grams. They increased their weight 27 times in around 8 months and almost tripled their length. When something eats ⅓ of how much it weighs in food every day, it grows extremely fast! Hopefully in about 25 years they will return to the Ontonagon River to spawn and replenish the population on their own, without our help.
With the rest of our day we went and explored more of the Porcupine Wilderness State Park. We climbed the tower at Lookout Peak. We ate lunch at the pavilion at Presque Isle Park. We spent the rest of our time relaxing, exploring, and hanging out with friends on the island across the suspension bridge at the Presque Isle River. It was a great day!
Senior John Balchik and Junior Zach Smith recently completed two new podiums, one for the JROTC program, and one to celebrate Ironwood Area Schools Centennial Anniversary. The JROTC podium was on display at the JROTC awards ceremony last week, and the Centennial podium was used for the graduation ceremony last Friday night. Thanks for all your hard work completing these beautiful pieces, boys!
Congratulations to the April Students of the Month! Lowell Hampston, 1st grade, Aidynn Tesch, 3rd grade, Elliott Nelson, 5th grade, Bukkit Paul, 11th grade, and Charles Eades, 4th grade, were all awarded a certificate at last Monday's board meeting for showing excellent RISE expectations. Way to do things the Wright Way!
It's Throwback Thursday... a little late!
Luther L. Wright has had a Junior ROTC program since 1931. Today we are one of three schools in the Upper Peninsula with JROTC which also include Calumet and Houghton. Many cadets have benefited from this leadership program with excellent commanders providing the instruction. Here is a photo of the group in 1995. We would also like to salute our Class of 2024, as our seniors graduate tonight. We wish them all the best in the years ahead. “Keep your face to the sunshine and shadows will always fall behind you.” -Walt Whitman
The Summer Lunch Program starts on Monday, June 10th. We are serving from 11:00am - 12 noon Mon - Fri. We also have some area groups with Kid friendly activities (tied in with our Summer Lunch) throughout the summer. All area children ages 18 and under can enjoy free lunch. You do not have to be a student of Ironwood Area Schools to participate. It is a great time for your child to interact with other area children in a safe, friendly fun environment. Adults can enjoy a lunch with their child for $5.25 each.
We hope to see you there.
Every year, students enrolled in woodworking make shadow boxes for the VFW. This is a continuation of a community project that was started many years ago by retired shop teacher Dave Paynter. These shadow boxes house the shells of the shots fired at the funerals of veterans, as well as the American flag. The shells reference the practice of firing three shots on the battlefield to signal a pause in fighting to remove the bodies of fallen soldiers. They also represent the words duty, honor, and country. The boxes are gifted to the families of veterans who have passed.
This year Lily Magdziak and Jaiden Demaray put an exceptional amount of work into the project doing all of the finishing work so that the boxes look clean and beautiful. Nice work girls!
IAS is accepting applications for a Full-Time K-6 School Counselor. Detailed Job Description is available at: https://www.ironwoodschools.org/page/employment-opportunities
The Advanced Woodworking students are learning to use our new Onefinity CNC router. CJ Feezor, who is a senior baseball player, just completed this Red Devils Baseball Sign. It was built in the Woodworking Lab in memory of Mike Wasley, who was a 2007 graduate of Ironwood Area Schools. Beautiful job CJ!
Mrs. Lavinder’s 4th grade students and Mr. Negro’s 1st graders worked together to write original poems: haikus, limericks and autobiography poems. On Friday the two classes came together to share their poems - complete with a microphone & finger snaps😁. They ended their presentation with a snack of donuts and a tasty beverage (root beer or cream soda).
The third grade took a field trip to the Porcupine Mountains. We started with a tour of the Lake of the Clouds and then traveled to the Nonesuch Trail. The amazing park interpreters had hands on activities to engage our students. This was a first time visit for a large portion of our third graders. Thank you to the Friends of the Porkies for providing us with the opportunity to explore the beauty of our area!
It's Throwback Thursday! This week we are featuring our music programs here at Luther L. Wright. There is a proud history of excellent music instruction and high interest in our students through the decades. It was difficult to choose photos because the yearbooks feature pages of musicians in all sorts of groups and levels. The band photo is from 1929, the senior choir was taken in 1964, and did you know our school had an orchestra? This is a photo of the group in 1958. The legacy continues with our current music teachers on staff; Mr. Darin Schmidt with choral instruction and choirs at middle and high school including Accent, and Mr. Kirk McBrayer as our band director including a jazz band and music instruction for the elementary levels. We thank them for their talents and excellent work with our students! If you have a special memory or teacher from our music programs, please share.
Science Class News!
This past fall, the MTU Center for Science and Environmental Outreach (CSEO) was awarded funding from the Michigan Science Teachers Association, the Michigan Association of Environmental Professionals, and the Kellogg Youth Endowment Fund (managed by the Keweenaw Area Community Foundation) to purchase and distribute air quality monitors across the W-UP, to compile standards-aligned lesson plans about air quality and air quality issues, and to provide information to the W-UP communities about how they can easily access the real-time readings from sensors near their location and throughout the region.
During the past couple of years, the summer wildfires that happened across wide areas of northern Canada caused smoke conditions that consequently led to poor air quality for this region. During the summer of 2023, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) issued statewide health alerts due to increased particulate matter in the air, some of which were the first-ever air-quality notifications issued in the Upper Peninsula.
The health alerts from EGLE are intended to inform people to take health precautions such as limiting physical activity, staying inside, or wearing an N95 when outside. However, when those poor air quality conditions were occurring, data for the W-UP were not available. If anyone was interested in knowing the air quality measurements near their own location, other than two sensors in L'Anse (installed by the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community) and one on Mt. Horace Greely (installed by the Open Skies Project) , there were no sensors in any of Keweenaw, Houghton, Baraga, Ontonagon, Gogebic or Iron Counties. The best information available was a broadly applied model of conditions based on air quality readings at distant locations and the current prevailing wind conditions.
At Ironwood, our air quality monitor was installed last week. Check out the link at https://map.purpleair.com/1/mAQI/a10/p604800/cC0#6.95/46.364/-89.456 to see our air quality map!
On Friday, May 10, Michigan Technological University hosted their 35th annual Bio-athlon. This is a single-day, hands-on, problem solving competition with a variety of real world based projects. Through these projects students demonstrate organizational skills, critical and creative thinking, knowledge of biological concepts, and laboratory skills.
The four person team from Ironwood placed second! Congratulations to team members Nathan Jaunzems (Junior), Jacinta Lauzon, Mark Jaunzems, and Madelena Braucher (sophomores). Lily Nolan-Couillard (sophomore) prepared as a team alternate. Excellent work, students!
Science Class News!
Check out the link to see real-time earthquake data from our new LL Wright earthquake sensor!
Michigan Tech Professor, Gregory Waite, administers the program which provides schools with a seismometer. This seismometer will detect earthquakes from around the world.
The seismometer is a Raspberry Shake, built on the inexpensive Raspberry Pi computer platform. Each seismometer sends data showing the vertical ground motion to a server so that it can be accessed using web-based (https://dataview.raspberryshake.org/) and mobile phone apps (https://raspberryshake.org/news/the-shakenet-mobile-app-for-apple-and-android/). Built-in filters for 'global', 'regional', and 'local' seismicity make it easy to find earthquakes.
IAS is accepting applications for a Full-Time Elementary SPED Teacher and a Full-Time Kindergarten Teacher. Detailed Job Descriptions are available at: https://www.ironwoodschools.org/page/employment-opportunities
Mrs. Boyd’s class celebrated their book The Pencil Thief with a donut party. Each student wrote and illustrated a page in the book.
Chaneille Ruotsala, a teacher cadet for the CTE Teacher Academy, taught Mrs. Boyd’s 2nd graders a lesson on plants. She introduced the lesson by explaining the life cycle and then took the students outside to plant seeds. The students enjoyed the mini lesson!
The Senior class went to Wildman Adventure Resort on Sunday! They enjoyed white water rafting and zip lining. The weather was perfect!
If you missed Accent's concert Saturday night, you missed a great one! With an incredible wide range of styles and excellent individual student performances, it was a fantastic show!
