For Seventh Grade Science, It’s Water, Water Everywhere This Year

This week, seventh grade science launched our year-long inquiry into water—a topic we’ll continue to explore throughout the year through the lenses of Earth science, chemistry, biology, and physics. We began with a deceptively simple question: How much water is actually available to us on Earth?

Students participated in a hands-on investigation called Water, Water Everywhere. To model all of Earth’s water, we started with 1,000 mL of water and then distributed it among beakers representing the oceans, glaciers and ice caps, groundwater, freshwater lakes, inland seas, soil moisture, the atmosphere, and rivers. As students carefully measured each amount, they quickly discovered that the distribution of water on Earth is anything but equal.

The activity also gave us an opportunity to practice an important scientific skill: distinguishing observation from inference. Students recorded what they could directly observe in the beakers and then used that evidence to make inferences about how much water is actually accessible to humans and other living things. The tiny amounts representing rivers, lakes, and atmospheric water made for some particularly striking observations!

This investigation is just the beginning. Throughout the year, we will return to water again and again, asking questions about how it moves through Earth’s systems, how humans use and impact it, and what happens when we look at water at the molecular and cellular levels. We’ll investigate the water cycle, water resources and human impacts, acids and bases, and eventually explore how water connects to living systems and physical phenomena.

Our goal is not simply to learn facts about water, but to think like scientists—asking questions, making observations, using evidence, and building explanations about the world around us.

– Maggie Small, seventh grade science teacher

Athletics Update: Fall Season Is Off To an Exciting Start

The 2026–27 athletics year is officially underway, and the energy around Belmont Day has been tremendous! The opening weeks of the season included tryouts for some teams and the beginning of practices for others, all while navigating the seventh-grade trip followed closely by the sixth-grade trip. With everyone now back on campus, we have settled into a great rhythm, and our fields, trails, and gym have been buzzing. Students are working hard, competing, having fun, supporting one another, and beginning to build the team cultures that will carry them through the fall.

This season, the Blue and Gold will field boys’ varsity and JV soccer, a combined varsity and JV girls’ soccer program, varsity and JV flag football, varsity and JV volleyball, cross country, and field hockey. We are incredibly fortunate to have a tremendous coaching staff working with our students across all of these offerings. As always, our coaches are focused on teaching their sports in depth; developing individual skills, introducing strategy and tactics, building team concepts, and helping students learn how to practice and compete with purpose.

Alongside that work, we are placing an increased emphasis on leadership development across the athletics program this year. While we emphasize leadership as a whole, our fall season will highlight “Leading Yourself,” helping students think about their own preparation, effort, attitude, communication, and accountability. During the winter, we will build toward “Leading Others,” with an emphasis on how students can positively influence, support, and bring out the best in their teammates. Finally, the spring will focus on “Leading Together,” challenging our students to understand how individuals come together to create strong, connected teams. Leadership is not limited to captains or eighth graders; just like the skills of a sport, it is something that can be taught, practiced, developed, and demonstrated every day.

Fifth Grade Science Deals In Learning About Food Chains

Fifth grade science class has kicked off with the study of food chains and food webs in our local communities, such as parks, woods, and backyards. Students are looking to answer the question, “What would happen if all the ants disappeared?” Fifth-grade scientists played a matching card game designed to help them understand the question more deeply and draw conclusions based on constructing their own food chains. The game was not only fun but also challenging and competitive, as students made connections based on their own cards and shrewdly “stole” needed cards from classmates.

– Patrick Murray, fifth grade teacher