Latest TJ Outdoor Classroom Is Volunteer Success Story

By SCOTT TAYLOR
Falls Church Times Staff

January 25, 2010

Welcome to: Are You Smarter than a Thomas Jefferson Elementary School Student?  That’s right, gather ’round all you City of Falls Church armchair intellectuals, real intellectuals, and intellectuals for hire.  Here is your first question: how can you tell the difference between Dolly Parton and the Dalai Lama?

Whoops – that isn’t even close to being the first question and for that we apologize.

That was a question leftover from a proposed Northern Virginia (NOVA), rest of Virginia (ROVA) Comedy Summit, Tractor Pull, Bikram Yoga Championship, and Voter Registration Drive.  Here is the actual question we had in mind: which scientific discipline links Chaos Theory, Aristotle, 90-minute flight delays at San Francisco International, and the 19^th century British pharmacist Luke Howard?

Still ciphering on that one?  So are the kids at TJ.  How about this question (the answer is the same): what do thermometers, hygrometers, barometers, and rain gauges have in common?  Answer: they are meteorological tools and all part of TJ’s latest outdoor classroom initiative – a weather station.

This latest addition to the extensive outdoor classroom resources at TJ was coordinated by Kate Klemic and would not have been possible without the City of Falls Church Elementary PTA Outdoor Classroom Committee and E.E. Levri Construction, LLC.  One hundred percent of the time and materials for this project were either donated or are the result of PTA fund raising and contributions.

The entire weather station contains:

• a large thermometer in Fahrenheit  and Celsius
• a hygrometer (this measures relative humidity)
• a barometer (this measures atmospheric pressure)
• three rain gauges (these measure rainfall)
• a weather vane (this measures wind speed and direction)
• a soil thermometer

David Levri donated his time, materials, and carpentry skills to the creation of the housing for the weather station.

It is certainly possible that as the TJ students hone their meteorological knowledge, conversations like this may be commonplace in the future.

Dad:  Stephan, wash-up for dinner.  Your mother’s flight from Boston is delayed so we’re eating at home tonight.

Stephan:  Really?  I guess the temperature, dew point spread was pretty close – couple that with light winds and it makes sense that the fog is going to roll in off the harbor.

Dad:  Huh?

Today’s Lesson: Irresistible Force Meets Impervious Object

Part 3 in a Series

By SCOTT TAYLOR
Falls Church Times Staff

Wordsmiths, what do you think: “Impervious surface effectiveness demo project”?  The words just trip off the tongue, don’t they?

This is what Patricia Samora, a professional engineer who recently moved from the City of Falls Church, and her associates titled the City’s 2007 grant proposal to the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation.  It is perhaps a title only an engineer, landscape architect, or policy wonk could love but whatever you think about those five words – one adjective leavening four nouns – they worked and brought $93,000 to the City from VADCR.

The City’s entire proposal – the four-page application, the five-page narrative – was one of 73 received in Richmond and among the 37 selected for funding by the Virginia Water Quality Improvement Fund.  Right up front in the application, VADCR wanted to know who else had skin in the game; how much was the City going to bring to the table?  $114,000, thank you very much.  Everything came together to create a real opportunity for water quality improvement except nobody was really sure what came next.  Concepts and good ideas had carried the day but there were no projects both designed and sited. Read more

Falls Church PTAs Seek Combined Federal Campaign Dollars

The Falls Church PTAs — Mount Daniel/Thomas Jefferson Elementary Schools, Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School, and George Mason High School — are reminding parents who are federal employees that they can designate part or all of their Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) contributions for their local PTA/PTSA chapters.  All three organizations are charities associated with the campaign, and federal employees have until December 15 to sign up to contribute through the CFC.   Designation codes for the three PTAs are:

• Falls Church Elementary PTA: 14598
• Mary Ellen Henderson PTA: 40097
• George Mason PTSA: 79191

TJ’s Rain Gardens: Art, Education and the Environment

By SCOTT TAYLOR
Falls Church Times Staff

Part 2 in a Series

Don’t know if you’ve heard the tragic news.  Jack (he’s a dog) was washed into a storm drain – “eaten by the drain” if you listen to EZ talk (he’s another dog) – and the Fairfax County storm water management division isn’t quite sure where he’ll surface between Falls Church and the Chesapeake Bay.

Jeanette, EZ, and Rosie are truly concerned and feel they can rescue Jack by tracing his route from Tripps Run to the Potomac then on to the Chesapeake Bay.  The Tripps Run watershed drains two-thirds of Falls Church City, after all, so it sure makes sense to start looking there.

You haven’t heard this story yet?  Then you must not have a fourth grade student at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School where a project to mitigate the impact of storm water runoff through the installation of rain gardens has been transformed into a multi-faceted, interactive educational component of the fourth grade science curriculum. Read more

TJ’s Outdoor Classroom Goes Global

By SCOTT TAYLOR
Falls Church Times Staff

It has been observed that with a plan, a map, and some courage, any person can achieve some level of success as they press ahead through life pursuing their dreams. For the students about to begin their school year at Thomas Jefferson Elementary, dreams for the future are abundant, most of the plans are a little fuzzy, courage levels vary from Wonder Womanesque to the Cowardly Lion, and there is a brand new map of the world in which their dreams will play out one way or another.

The large map – a twenty by thirty-six foot Mercator projection of the Earth – was finished over the Labor Day weekend thanks to the efforts of the City of Falls Church Elementary School PTA and a handful of young cartographers.  Painted with acrylic latex paint on the asphalt adjacent to the playground and ball fields, it is one of the latest additions to the Falls Church City Outdoor Classroom initiative supported by the PTA and the Education Task Group of the Falls Church Environmental Services Council.

“We’re hoping it looks like this tomorrow,” Lynn Wagner, a parent volunteer on the PTA outdoor classroom committee, said gesturing to the map.  She had returned to TJ to finish the project Saturday morning only to find bicycle tire marks across several areas of the map.  “It took us five hours to stencil this before we could begin painting,” Wagner said.

“You put orange cones up around it and for kids on bicycles, it’s an open invitation” to run a course through the cones, observed Matt Grund, Wagner’s husband.

While Wagner and Jen Cipriano provided materials and oversight, the students who will continue to benefit from the outdoor classroom concept provided a significant amount of brushwork and artistic judgment.  Lydia and Siri Grund, ages nine and six, joined Olivia and Emilia Cipriano, also ages nine and six, for the holiday weekend work effort.

“Siri and Emilia did Greenland,” Lydia was eager to point out as she and her sister surveyed their shared accomplishment.  Almost as if to demonstrate the academic value of a project of this scale, there was suddenly a spontaneous flurry of pointing followed by a name and a place.  “Kazakhstan is right there, it was painted by… see that’s Ethiopia…I painted Poland.”

The principal PTA fundraiser that supports establishing outdoor classroom resources is the spring Falls Church Home and Garden Tour.  “It won’t finance everything, but we have done a lot,” Wagner admits, pointing out the recently completed outdoor amphitheater adjacent to the school’s playground.  “And, we are still looking for a volunteer to coordinate the home and garden tour this year.”  Other examples of outdoor classroom spaces at TJ are the Three Sisters Native American Garden, the pumpkin trellis, and the fern and fossil garden.

As Lydia and Siri helped their parents pack up the paints and head to the car, Wagner remarked, “Looks like I’m headed off to talk to the paint guy – we need some type of sealer.”  Two hours later, she was methodically working her way across the globe, protecting each nation not from regional hegemony or terrorist infiltration, but from the equally senseless damage caused by spray paint and skidding bicycle tires.

TJ Elementary Named Distinguished School

Read more

TJ’s Rain Garden Underway

By SCOTT TAYLOR
Falls Church Times Staff

Bill Abel’s business card says, “Where art happens…is up to you!”  On a recent Saturday morning the “where” for his art was the Thomas Jefferson Elementary School and the “up to you” was a collective effort between the State, City, School Board, and others interested in promoting environmental awareness and watershed education.

The Rain Garden project being installed at TJ will provide numerous educational opportunities and environmental benefits, all potentially delivered with the visual flair of a chemical refinery or an auto chop shop if not for Abel’s contributions.

TJ’s neighbors’ alarm at the large, robin’s-egg-blue cisterns that were installed in early spring was thoroughly addressed by Shirley Street from the City and TJ’s Principal, Vincent Baxter.  Both emphasized the art project – the four seasons – that is integral to the Rain Garden’s execution.  “Thank you for working with us on this, “ Baxter said.  “You’ll see the art and the environmental benefits when you look out the window, not the big rain barrels.”  Street also met with neighbors to explain the purpose of the project and offered to collaborate with neighbors on artistic plans for the cisterns.

Abel, who has outlined much of each season to be portrayed on the individual cisterns, was frustrated by some graffiti that had appeared on the spring cistern during the previous evening.  “I’m going to paint right over that,” Abel said as he surveyed the angular, incoherent letters dashed-off with a large marker.

He described how eventually a paint boundary or a protective coating would be applied to the cisterns.  Graffiti will be easily removed without negatively impacting the art beneath a clear, protective layer of varnish.

Abel, a parent with three children in Falls Church City public schools who also serves as a crossing guard at both TJ and George Mason High School, is enthusiastic about the Rain Garden.  He emphasized the students’ participation in the project’s planning.  “The second grade – they’re big into life cycles,” Abel said.  “They’ve really helped with the direction for these paintings.”

Coming Soon: The Falls Church Times will publish an extensive overview of the Rain Gardens being installed at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School.

‘Virginia Day’ Comes to TJ Elementary School

(Page 1 caption: Shoemaker Grinden Collins explains his trade.)

Woodworkers, cabinet makers, ship builders, architects, harbor masters, innkeepers, milliners, housemakers, printers, wigmakers . . . they had many roles and professions.

The fourth grade classes at Thomas Jefferson Elementary demonstrated what life was like in Colonial Virginia Friday, exhibiting objects made in the old fashion and describing the daily routines of our ancestors.

Virginia Day is an annual tradition at TJ, culminating a year of studying the early Old Dominion, its history, economy and geography.  Students, teachers, and parents embrace it with enthusiasm and energy.  Younger grades serve as the audience, previewing the roles they will play in the future.

Photos of Virginia Day appear below.  Congratulations to all on a great job.

Next Page »