Editor’s note: Members of the Regional School Unit 5 board of directors are providing an occasional column for readers of the Tri-Town Weekly that will focus on various positive aspects of the local educational system.

Greetings! Each month the school board will be bringing you news about some of the wonderful things that are happening in RSU 5 to support students’ learning and their school experience. This month we asked each of the principals to share something that was happening in their school.

Morse Street School (Pre-K-2) – Fun Learning Fridays

The second-grade team decided to create an exciting new way to teach science and social studies. They met during the summer to plan their instruction, and created some learning units they are calling “Fun Learning Fridays.” Groups that include a mix of students from each second-grade class rotate between classrooms to participate in hands-on science and social studies learning activities. During a “Science Rocks” unit, students examined and sorted rock collections. During “The Human Body” unit, they built model skeletons using pasta shapes as bones, and in the “Maps and Globes” unit, they did compass activities and continent searches. This approach is also helping students build community by getting to know all of the second-grade teachers and by working with many of their second-grade peers. Fun Learning Fridays are a success and results have been fantastic.

Pownal Elementary School (Pre-K-5) – Annual school musical

Pownal Elementary School is busily getting ready for the grades 3-5 musical, which is an annual spring tradition. The musical’s topic is selected to closely align with what the students are learning in their classrooms. This year’s production is “U.S. Geography … an Extraterrestrial Safari.” Mrs. Bois, the music teacher, and students have committed their hearts and souls to making this a fun and fantastic production. The musical is coordinated to open the same day as the school Art Show on Friday, March 27. Arrive as early as 5:30 p.m. to view the students’ great works of art and then make your way to the gymnasium for the musical, which begins at 6:30 p.m.. Admission is a canned or dry good to be donated to the local food pantry. The fifth grade will also be hosting a bake sale to raise funds for their field trip to Boston this spring. Hope to see you there.

Mast Landing School (3-5) – Family Engineering Night

The second annual Family Engineering Night is coming up May 18 for fourth-grade students and their families. Last year students and their families were able to meet civil and mechanical engineers from HDR Engineering, receive engineering-related door prizes, and do hands-on activities, like designing a boat made out of tinfoil with the goal of holding as many pennies as possible in a tub of water. Principal Beth Willhoite said: “The movement in science now is to have more hands-on, project-based science. We’re trying to integrate those STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) principles in the science curriculum wherever possible.” These events have been made possible by grants from the Freeport, Pownal, and Durham Education Foundation and L.L. Bean.

Durham Community School (K-8) – Studying hunger

What does hunger mean to you? What does hunger mean to the people living in Guatemala, Mississippi or Franklin County? Seventh-grade students are part of an interdisciplinary unit that is investigating the effects of hunger and food insecurity on our world, nation and state. Students have been investigating the multiple factors of hunger in their math, science, English language arts and social studies classes. The students began the seven-week unit on Feb. 26 with an official Launch Day. Mark Lapping, a professor from the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service, and Ken Morse, coordinator from Maine Farm to School Network and Maine Network of Community Food Councils, spoke to the students about their work with the local food systems. Students have been using several key resources – a documentary film called “Living on One Dollar,” www.feedingamerica.org, and http://extension.umaine.edu/.

Freeport Middle School (6-8) – Spreading kindness

Freeport Middle School was showered with kindness while listening to the inspirational author/speaker, Michael Chase.

He shared his stories and insights on the importance of spreading kindness in our lives. He is the author of “Am I Being Kind,” as well as several other titles, and the founder of the Kindness Center. This speaker was brought to the middle school as a follow-up to students’ learning, discussing and writing about kindness and peer mistreatment. Mr. Chase spoke to the school as a continuation of work the sixth-grade students have been doing in their reading workshop class through the social issues/bullying unit. It is important to learn to be personally responsible for our behavior and to ask ourselves in social situations, “Am I being kind?” The student organization, “Peer Leaders,” is working to create school-wide events that create a kind school community. Let the kindness spread.

Freeport High School (9-12) – Awards and honors

Senior Caleb Abbott was one of five students to win the Maine Sports Hall of Fame Scholar-Athlete award for his outstanding achievements in sports, academics and school leadership. Fellow senior Emily Johnson won the Western Maine Conference’s Student Leadership Award. Both Johnson and Abbott will also receive the Western Maine Conference’s Citizenship Award.

Seventeen juniors who have earned an average grade point average of 93 or higher have submitted applications for induction into the National Honor Society, a national organization that recognizes students for demonstrating excellence in scholarship, leadership, service and character. If they are accepted into the society in May, advisers can nominate three of them for state, regional and national scholarship awards between $1,000 and $13,000.

RSU 5 board members include Kate Brown, Pownal; Candy deCsipkes, Durham; Lindsay Sterling and Valy Steverlynk, both of Freeport.