Alex Anderson may not be the largest student currently enrolled at New River Academy, but Wednesday morning he won a tug of war against four of his classmates. How is this possible you may ask? Mechanical advantage was in his favor.

Shown above is a experiment from Andy Kirby’s physics class. After an in class discussion on levers and pulleys the students headed outside to apply these new concepts. The first objective was to pull the school van across the parking lot. The students set up a standard Z-drag and realized that this was not enough mechanical advantage to easily pull the van. Two additional pulleys where added and the experiment conducted again. The students noticed that it there are two ways to anchor the second pulleys. Eventually the pulleys were added in a way to offer the most mechanical advantage and the van was easily pulled across the parking lot. After this Alex showed off by winning a tug of war against classmates Tracy d’Arbeloff, Haakon Samuelson, Eric Bartl, Clay Whitaker.

It’s no longer a full moon that floats above us in the evening, but rather a piercing silver sliver, a finger nail moon. With the soft gauze of summer replaced by the hardening skies of autumn, the stars are burning brighter every night. The photo students are preparing to take long exposures of star tracks.

Just like the seasons, our semester is progressing forward. No longer in the introductory phase, classes have moved ahead and are entering the phase of exams, essays, and creative group projects. Spanish classes are gearing up on their conjugations, with Chile approaching closer each day. Math teacher Andy Kirby is proving to be one of the most exemplary teachers I have ever met. He goes nowhere without his calculus book, and when he is not hand writing study guides, he is working one on one with students all the way until quiet time.

In survival, Tracy d’Arbeloff and Stephen Forster learned how to make milkweed into thread and braid their own bracelets. These bracelets were the center of attention among all the students for a while! In photography, my students and I have taken to hitting the road and staging shots around the area to capture the “essence of the Ottawa Valley.”  The AP Literature & Composition students are seeing the light at the end of the Grapes of Wrath tunnel and planning their creative final project. Some will prepare and serve a meal just the way Ma Joad did on the road to California, others will take a stab at historical fiction by producing hand written letters between the characters, still others will make a board game portraying the events and social philosophies of the text.

World literature students are planning a photo shoot of their own- using history teacher Matt Smink to pose as Eustace Conway, the contentious hero of the biography The Last American Man, in a number of reading related scenes. And creative writing sstudentTaylor Cote is writing fabulous stories to accompany her fabulous photos.

We are still dining well, although dining with 13 is always a bit of a culinary adventure. “Leftovers Day” is always fun….last week all the students combined all the leftovers in a pot of rice and beans, added a container of cream cheese and labeled it the “GGeniusMix.” I will be the first one to tell you it was surprisingly dDelicious like a very hearty Italian risotto- and I have a very sensitive ppallet Our dinners at Wilderness Systems are nightly feasts with salad bar, all you can eat bread, dessert and an entree every night. It is such a luxury to be fed for dinner, saving us cooking, planning, shopping and cleaning.

Life has settled into a comfortable- albeit adventurous- routine. Up at 7 for morning workout, running or sit ups and push ups. Then wide awake for breakfast, class, class, class, class, lunch! a nice 45 minute lunch so we have time to digest pproperlyand relax, then class, class, clean up the place….and then a race! To get our gear on and get in our boats, pull the sspray skirtover the deck and push off into the water. Then it’s paddle, paddle, paddle, up up up….into the wave, bback stab front surf, back surf, big trick and Flush! Paddle back to the eddy, watch and cheer for the others during their ride, and then back on.

As the light starts to wane from the sky, we paddle in, pull on warm dry clothes and head down to the lodge for dinner. When we return it’s pure studying, SAT prep class, one on one tutoring, and maybe a few kayak yyou tubevideos before crawling into bed. The amount of cozy around the place is positively ccorrelated to how cold it is growing outside.

Hope you’re enjoying the changes of the season as much as we are!