Students Share Interest in Burrowing Owls
Cabrillo engineering student, Eric Wells, met with Mount Madonna School (MMS) math and science teacher PD Rohan and MMS 6th grade students and their families at the Watsonville Wetlands Watch Open House on Sunday, Nov. 4. Wells shared with the MMS group about building burrowing owl nests as part of his Eagle Scout project.. The students who attended were reminded of the Western Burrowing Owl, a bird which their class focused on for their award-winning “Give A Hoot” project last year.
Mount Madonna School (MMS) students Milana Beck, 5th, Riley Butler, 6th, and Amelia Busenhart, 8th, will be dancing in Santa Cruz Ballet Theatre’s (SCBT) upcoming production of the “Nutcracker,” December 14, 15, and 16 at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium.
Gazing out from the stage in the school’s Assembly Room, thirteen second grade students stand together and collectively ask questions and share statistics with the assembled audience: “Don’t all people deserve enough food to be able to live with health and happiness?”
Mount Madonna School student Brigg Busenhart (7th grade), is featured on the cover of the The Silicon Valley San Jose Business Journal’s 2012/2013 Giving Guide for his work as a Junior Board Member of a small nonprofit, the Tim Brauch Foundation. This foundation oversees The Tim Brauch Memorial Fund and was started by Sessions, a Santa Cruz action sports company co-owned by Brigg’s mother, Cindi Ferreira Busenhart. 
Mount Madonna School’s current Model United Nations (MUN) contingent is at its largest ever – fifteen delegates, including seven new participants! Club members recently participated in a training session and mock MUN hosted by the University of California, Berkeley.
On a recent sunny morning at Santa Cruz’s Natural Bridges State Beach, some 30 visitors to the beach were Mount Madonna School (MMS) students and parents taking part in LiMPETS (Long-term Monitoring Program and Experiential Training for Students), an environmental monitoring and education program that encourages participation by ‘citizen scientists.’
Congratulations to Mount Madonna sophomore Carlo LeGan, whose Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu skills earned him first place gold in a 10-0 shut-out final match at the recent Rising Sun National Tournament in Daly City. This August 25 event marked Carlo’s fourth consecutive shut-out tournament (no points scored against him).
Longtime MMS contributor and friend, Shmuel Thaler, will be showing exhibits of his photographs in downtown Santa Cruz in September and October.