Dingman-DelawareMiddle School – MR. JAMES MITCHELL

  • Minutes. The amount of time it takes for an Odyssey of the Mind (O.M.) team to compete. Months. The amount of time it takes that same team to prepare for their eight minutes in front of judges. Not one, but two O.M. teams won the Regional level competition this week and will represent the Dingman-Delaware Middle School in the State competition to be held in Pittsburgh this April. Mr. Dan Gardener’s Classics team and Mrs. Karen Waggenhoffer’s Theatrical team are polishing their performances for the chance to win the coveted Pennsylvania Wizard hat and to advance to the World Finals at Iowa State University in May.
  • Dystopia is the theme for this year’s gifted course, led by Mrs. Rachel Goldstein of the Dingman-Delaware Middle School. Students have been challenged to build an electromagnet, and will be creating homemade compasses and exploring water purification, all things needed to survive. In a recent modified military survival scenario, students were told to imagine that they’d crashed in the northern Canadian wilderness and given a list of salvaged items from the wreck. Their job was to list, in order of importance, which of the items they would need and how they would use them to survive.
  • Did you know there are dozens of children in need in our area who would like to learn to play a musical instrument? Every year, local school band and orchestra programs recruit new student members, particularly at the elementary level where students first come of age to join an ensemble, but there are always students who would like to participate that cannot afford to purchase or rent an instrument. This year, under the direction of Mrs. Cindi Stine, the Odyssey Angel team of the Dingman-Delaware Middle School is collecting used instruments and/or monetary donations to help needy aspiring musicians realize their dream. Odyssey Angels is an offshoot of the Odyssey of the Mind (OM) organization. It is a national program that encourages schools to start a community service team. Teams then develop and carry out a service project, and present their project at the annual OM competition.
  • If someone says middle school science fair, papier mâché volcanoes and potato energized light bulbs may instantly come to mind. However, the sixth, seventh and eighth grade students who participated in this year’s Dingman-Delaware Middle School Science Fair applied the scientific method to explore some atypical subjects in addition to the more traditional ones. Project topics included: solar vs. wind power, the impact of height on self-esteem, animal behavior and many more. “The caliber of work was astonishing,” said head judge and honors science teacher Mrs. Gina McCarthy. “We had a very difficult time determining our first, second, and third place finishers. All students worked very hard and abided by all necessary criteria (i.e. variables were identified and understood, hypothesis was testable, and procedure was reproducible, etc.).”

Returning participant and third place winner, Alice Cauchi, studied the more traditional science topic of solar vs wind power. “It took my dad and I eight hours to build a wind turbine out of Plexiglas, conduit pipe, a fan, and a lot of electrical stuff,” Cauchi said. They connected the wind turbine and a solar panel to two dead car batteries of the same voltage. After charging the batteries for six hours, Cauchi tested each with a voltmeter and found that the solar energy source worked best.

  • Fire Drill: 2 minutes 20 seconds.