Dolphinwatch

We are in the middle of Founders’ Week.  During this week, we reflect on our school’s culture: How did it originate? What do we value? What actions can we take to live those values? Our students attend guest speakers, many who are OLHS alumni.  In fact, Isaiah McKinney–who is heading to UChicago to do postgraduate studies, spoke about his journey to becoming a paleontologist, and Tawny Stinson–who is heading to Harvard School of Medicine, spoke about her work in neuroscience research while at Tufts.  These speakers share how the values we hold dear in our school emerge in life beyond our walls.  Ultimately, we know that some of the most profound learning happens outside of the classroom.

Our students learn collaboration and teamwork through extra-curricular activities–sports, teams, clubs, and jobs.  In these same settings, our students learn resilience, tenacity, empathy, and problem-solving.  Our school values service, leadership, hard work, and building a human network of lifters.  This week clubs, classes, and faculty are supporting the Ronald McDonald House with donation drives, meal prep, and writing messages of encouragement and support.

For the past two years, our MSA senior projects have been invited to be a part of the week’s events. The senior projects perfectly exemplify our school culture and values, so featuring them during Founder’s Week is a great fit.  This year’s projects include: 1. a collaboration between a current senior and an alum on a paper to be submitted to the University College of London; 2. a Regeneron Talent Search semi-finalist; 3. a collaborative project that bridges ODU bioelectric research, Virginia water conservation education, and the HRSD SWIFT Water facility mission; and, 4. 118 seniors who have explored careers, investigated questions, and are making major life decisions and sharing their stories with MSA underclassmen. Check out the project titles by visiting bit.ly/MSA-SPTalks!

If you are interested in serving as a mentor, reach out to Allison Graves, senior project advisor, at argraves@vbschool.com or through direct message.

Professionalism, Communication, and Networking in Action

On Tuesday, February 4th, we celebrated the class of 2025 during our annual senior project gallery event.  Our seniors shared their projects through an open-house poster gallery that welcomed over 400 community members.  The seniors shared that the parents in attendance asked some challenging questions and that the interaction with such knowledgeable professionals gave them confidence for the more formal presentations the seniors will deliver in about a month.

Those juniors, sophomores, and freshmen who were in attendance can now count this year’s seniors as powerful networking contacts.  Sophomores will be reaching out with letters of request to interview a current senior to learn more about senior projects. Juniors will be sending follow-up gratitude notes to seniors who shared their time and hindsight during the gallery event.  This year’s seniors will help to coach our younger students as they begin developing their professionalism tool boxes.

We hope that the school culture of networking, celebrating learning and growth, and sharing knowledge will continue with each graduating class; the class of 2025 certainly modeled those qualities last night.

Gallery Spotlight Awards

Gallery attendees had the opportunity to provide feedback on their favorite projects.  The winners in each of our gallery spotlight award categories will receive a special MSA water bottle.

Students are meeting with their counselors between now and the end of February to select courses for next year.  Our counseling department has created a valuable resource for students and parents to use when exploring course options. Visit the Course Registration Hub here.

Course verification forms will be due in March.  Now is the time to do some strategic planning about those courses that will help you grow, allow you to explore areas of interest, and to enrich your understanding of the world.

The MSA course description document found here.  The Course Registration Hub will also offer information about specialty and AP courses.

In a look ahead, the senior project gallery event being held on January 28th will be a great opportunity to talk to current seniors about courses they took, or wish they took, during their MSA academic journey. More details to come on that event!

Our program strives to foster autonomous learners.  Our teachers find opportunities to allow students to explore topics of personal interest.  One of our students shared some great news associated with her personal explorations that affirmed our mission, and we want to share it and celebrate her commitment to exploring her personal interests.

Meet Mihika, or Mahi as she likes to be called.

Mahi has been recognized as a 2024 Cle de Peau Beaute and Girls Who Code “20 under 20” winner.

When Mahi share the news she included this statement:

VBCPS is hosting their annual College Night on October 29th from 5:30-8 pm at the Virginia Beach Convention Center, please promote this event to your students.  Students can connect with representatives from a variety of colleges, universities, proprietary schools, and the military.  There will also be financial aid seminars.  

Students can register for a barcode before College Night at www.StriveFair.com. At College Night, colleges will scan their barcode to send them more information about their schools. The day after College Night, they will receive a report with information on the colleges they scanned. Students do not have to create a StriveScan account to attend College Night. It is an option for students to share their information with schools instead of a handwritten information card.

Each year our sophomores practice networking with our current senior class. Sophomores reach out to seniors with formal letters of request for interviews to discuss senior projects from a student’s perspective, and they share their resumes with seniors to gain insight into how to plan their high school experiences. These steps provide powerful learning experiences to prepare our students to engage with professionals.

This year, however, we experienced a first for our students’ professional networking.  An MSA alumnus read a post following the Tidewater Science and Engineering Fair, zoomed in on a student poster, and realized that the student was doing work that was very similar to his own field. The alumnus reached out through Facebook Messenger–and that’s where this story begins.

Andrew Mitchell, a 2011 Mathematics and Science Academy graduate, has enjoyed all kinds of awesome experiences over the past 14 years.  For his senior project, he completed an internship through the Jefferson Lab.  From there, inspired in large part by his amazing experience with our then band director Leah (Greber) Nelson, he attended VCU pursuing a music education major.

Following a desire to change course direction, Andrew attended Cardiff University in Wales for physics and music.  Upon graduating with his undergraduate degree, Andrew worked as an acoustics consultant and pursued a PhD in environmental acoustics at University College London. He now serves as a lecturer at UCL in urban noise and acoustics and is a Research Fellow focused on soundscape modeling.

When Dr. Mitchell zoomed in on Dylan M.’s research project poster, he realized that he could serve as an expert scientist helping Dylan to refine his work and prepare it for publication. During a recent trip back to the States, Dr. Mitchell included a visit to Ocean Lakes High School to learn more about Dylan’s work.  During the meeting, Dr. Mitchell offered to serve as Dylan’s senior project expert scientist.  They plan to conduct scheduled Zoom meetings this summer as Dylan prepares his work for publication.

Reflecting on the impact and relevance of that meeting, we hope that these kinds of networking moments continue to happen. Building a school culture takes deliberate planning and requires a commitment to the mission and vision of an organization.  Dr. Andrew Mitchell embodies the realization of our program’s vision, and he is now playing an important role in Dylan’s academic and young professional journey.

If you or your child is an MSA alum and would like to serve as a senior project mentor, please reach out to Allison Graves at argraves@vbschools.com.

Too often an organization’s mission and vision statements are just that– statements on marketing materials.  Here, at the Mathematics and Science Academy, they are guiding principles informing our daily work and our program’s development.  Walk into our classrooms, and you’ll see our mission guiding our daily work.  If you attended the Senior Project Gallery Open House on Tuesday, February 6th, you saw first-hand our vision for our students shining through the anticipation our seniors have for their futures.

Mission of the Mathematics & Science Academy

 The Mission of the Mathematics & Science Academy is to provide a rigorous and innovative academic program focused on mathematics and sciencewhich inspires and empowers students to pursue related careers and to make significant contributions to the global community.

Vision  of the Mathematics & Science Academy

The Vision of the Mathematics & Science Academy is to exemplify the best in mathematics and science education through the integration of 21st-century skills, current technologies, and authentic applicationsthat inspire and engage students and which ultimately will be realized in the innovative achievements, leadership, and service of its graduates in associated professions throughout the global community.

We are excited to see our seniors embrace the behaviors, attitudes, and practices that will help them become leaders in their eventual professions.  During the gallery event, seniors networked with underclassmen to encourage and inspire students to explore STEM-related fields. Our event was an open-house poster session modeled after poster sessions often held at universities and professional conferences.  Seniors designed professional posters featuring an overview of their work and links to their portfolios. Several sample posters can be found below.  This event was an opportunity for seniors to speak publicly about their projects and answer questions in a less formal setting than their formal presentations.

Their formal presentations begin at the end of the month.  While those presentations are designed for their peers and underclassmen, they are open to the public.  Feel free to check our schedule (Parent Copy MSA Presentation Schedule-2024). During the event, the senior project advisor met with juniors and their parents.  They are starting their senior project journey now!  If you missed the meeting, you can access a video version and the resources reviewed during the meeting on the Academy Advisor’s Corner page. 

New this year, visitors were able to vote on their favorite senior projects.  To encourage networking, our sophomores and juniors will now reach out to seniors requesting more formal interviews.  This step will help our underclassmen practice their professional letter/email writing, resume preparation, and professional communication skills before reaching out to professionals for their senior projects.

Congratulations to our senior winners!

Missed the gallery?  Here are a few posters spanning a variety of topics.

*Click the image to see it on its own page.

The Mathematics and Science Academy is more than a (well-cared-for) building, is more than a (rigorous and engaging) curriculum, and is more than an (impressive) list of student and program accolades.  The MSA is a special place because of the people who are invested in making our program the best it can be.

It is special because of the teachers who inspire our students to do some pretty great things–like Mr. Sonier, MSA Integrative STEM teacher, who was recently named teacher of the year.  Way to go, Mr. Sonier!

It is special because of the students who are curious and engaged with learning.  A great example of our students’ enthusiasm for learning happened on the second day of school this year. A small group of seniors who are working on senior projects related to cybersecurity were invited to attend the International Test and Evaluation Association (ITEA) cybersecurity conference and to participate in a STEAM Hack Challenge with other area schools.

It is special because of our parents who support student learning and encourage student engagement and autonomy.  The MSA Booster organization is a great example of our parents’ support for our students.  In fact, the Boosters offer yearly project grants to seniors as seed money for senior projects.  Students apply for grant funds after considering factors like impact, sustainability, and budget.  This year five students have been awarded Booster grants.  These grants will fund the first-ever OLHS STEAM Hack Challenge and Cybersecurity Workshop, educational brochures, materials for a robotics engineering design research project, and the printing of a children’s book.

If you are a current or former parent, or if you are an alumnus/alumna of our program, please consider joining our Booster organization.  They do so much for our organization beyond these grants.  They fund student enrichment experiences through an enrichment grant program and through financial support of field trips; they fund three annual scholarships; and, they support teachers with money for lab supplies.

You can support them with your membership and through their fundraising efforts.  Learn more by visiting their webpage and following them on Facebook!