February 4 – The high school boys’ soccer team played hard in two highly competitive games to wrap up the Condor League schedule yesterday, finishing 3rd in the league behind last year’s division 7 CIF southern section finalists, Dunn and Laguna Blanca. The OVS Spuds finish their season with a non-league match against Besant Hill next Wednesday. Currently, the boys sit at 4-3-1 on the season. Meanwhile, the girls’ soccer team is poised for a competitive match at rival Midland this Saturday.

Please visit the website calendar for upcoming game times and locations.

Woodshop teacher Ryan Lang gave his smallest students a lesson in wood burning Thursday. The Pre-K class gathered at the fire pit to watch Mr. Lang heat his custom-made branding iron in the fire, then burn an “OVS” into each of their wooden mallets.
The students will use their new tools in the woodshop after the holiday break.

OVS Robotics students assemble their first robots.

Ojai Valley School’s two robotics teams, the Spudniks and the Pythons, recently participated in the Greater Los Angeles FIRST Tech Challenge.

This is the high school’s first attempt at launching an academic robotics class along with an extracurricular club, and both are part of a larger effort to integrate science, technology, engineering and mathematics (S.T.E.M.) across all grades levels.

Though the Pythons and Spudniks didn’t emerge among the top finishers, they are excited to apply what they’ve learned to their next competition, slated for Jan. 18 in West Hills, Calif.

Read more about OVS robotics at On The Hill, the high school newspaper: Rise of the Robots

The Ojai Valley started the year off with a series of storms that dumped close to 4 inches of rain in town — and several inches of snow on the surrounding mountains.

January is shaping up to be a busy month at OVS!

Among the highlights:

• Jan. 18: Upper Campus Open House for prospective students and their families from 9 to 11 a.m. (RSVP: admissions@ovs-archive.ihwy.com)

• Jan. 18: The OVS robotics teams compete in Yula High School Robotics Competition.

• Jan. 18: Lower Campus Martin Luther King Jr. Day presentation and OVS Spelling Bee

• Jan. 19: Fourth grade field trip to Channel Islands National Park Visitor Center

• Jan. 24: Lower Campus surf fishing and snorkeling trip

• Jan. 29: Lower Campus class hikes & end of semester

View the full calendar here: OVS Calendar

View the weather and webcam here: Ojai Valley Weather

Nine OVS high school students and two administrators partnered with volunteers from across Ventura County last weekend to build erosion control “wattles” at the Channel Islands National Park headquarters in Ventura. The effort, funded by the U.S. Geological Survey, is intended to support ancient oak trees on Santa Rosa Island in the face of potentially significant winter rains. The service work supports the Santa Rosa Island Cloud Forest Restoration Project, which aims to undo some of the damage done by decades of over-grazing by sheep and cattle on the island.

On Saturday, November 14, the group of volunteers assembled more than 80 20-foot-long tubular rolls of geotextiles, including coconut and hibiscus fibers, to slow the flow of runoff and to collect sediment during the upcoming winter season. The wattles will be placed in an ancient oak forest at the Soledad Ridge on Santa Rosa Island. They will be installed as time, weather, and staffing allow in preparation for what could be a very wet winter.

“Due to decades of overgrazing, primarily by sheep, 3-4 feet of topsoil has eroded from around the 300- to 400-year-old oak trees, leaving them standing on their roots like mangroves,” said Ken Niessen of Channel Islands Restoration. He said the three-year restoration project has three major phases: controlling erosion, building soil, and replanting native plants. One of the more innovative aspects of the project is the use of “fog fences” to collect water from the summer fog to water the seedlings.

The wattles project is one piece of a broader partnership OVS is now developing with the Channel Islands National Park. The school hopes to support the park system while enriching the PK-12 curriculum, sustainability initiatives, and community service offerings.

“The Channel Islands are a little-know, remote jewel in the national park system, so it is is an extraordinary opportunity for OVS students to experience and contribute to active monitoring and restoration projects, to work side-by-side with committed wildlife biologists, and to spend time on these diverse and unique islands,” said John Wickenhaeuser, the school’s Director of Technology and Sustainability.

Assistant Upper Campus Head of School Craig Floyd said the partnerships opportunities truly benefit all parties.

“These projects enhance the curriculum by allowing students access to additional learning environments and broadening our outdoor education program as well as environmental sustainability issues,” Floyd sad. “As part of the OVS mission of experiential learning, this partnership meets the mission by getting the students doing ‘hands on’ learning in the community.”

OVS volunteers look forward to continuing to assist with this project by building more wattles, installing the wattles on the island, and planting native plants. There are also opportunities to participate in collecting data about the effectiveness of this project and kick-starting the recovery of the Santa Rosa Cloud Forest.

Developing a partnership with the national park has been a collaborative effort advanced by current Lower Campus parents Annie Little and Vahagn Nahabedian, faculty members Matt Inman and Duncan Wallace, administrators Floyd and Wickenhaeuser, and Monique Navarro and Yvonne Menard from the national park.

For more information about the Santa Rosa Island Cloud Forest Restoration Project, visit the parks service website at: http://www.nps.gov/chis/learn/nature/cloud-forest.htm

From the beaches to the mountains, desert heat to snow storms, Ojai Valley School students are capable and confident in the outdoors. Mt. Langley is up there – way up there at 14,026 feet in elevation – as one of the more challenging trips students take in middle school. But Outdoor Education Coordinator Matt Inman and Assistant Coordinator Duncan Wallace have been taking climbers to the summit for decades, and they know the trail quite well.

Preparation, Mr. Inman emphasizes, is the key. Packs and routes are checked and rechecked. Pre-trip meetings involve maps, strategies and details great and small. Although the five students for this year’s ascent were specially chosen for the Mt. Langley excursion because of their performance on past school camping trips, everyone knew this trip would present new challenges — many of them mental, as well as physical.

Perseverance, trip leaders say, is key on a trip like this. What will you tell yourself when your head is pounding from the high altitude, or when the wind cuts through all your layers and chills you to the bone? If you start to doubt yourself, how will you keep pushing on?

Knowing they were well prepared for their trip, the five students and five staff members set off on Oct. 15 for a 3-day adventure in the High Sierras. The first day found them at Fossil Falls, a dry riverbed carved out of basalt — the product of volcanic activity — leaving huge, oddly-shaped boulders spread across the desert landscape. After exploring and camping at Fossil Falls for the night, the group headed for Mt. Langley itself. They hiked about 5-and-a-half miles through rain to get to their next camp at the Cottonwood Lakes.

The middle school mountaineers hike to their campsite at the Cottonwood Lakes.

“Our campsite was about 100 feet from one of the Cottonwood Lakes,” Mr. Inman said. Tucked back into the trees between boulders, he added, “It was a really cozy little spot.”

Students ate lunch and explored around the lake and prepared their gear to attempt the summit the next morning. Everyone was in high spirits as they ate dinner and celebrated the 60th birthday of Jeff Tracy, a member of the Lower Campus maintenance staff and past parent who also helps out on camp trips. Then it was off to bed early.

“When the sun goes down, it gets cold fast up there,” Mr. Wallace pointed out. Before crawling into their tents, Mr. Inman talked again about mental preparation. “The mountain is always there,” as he often says, “but you’ve got to get home.”

Saturday morning, the group was up and moving by 6:45 a.m. and after breakfast headed up Old Army Pass, a decommissioned trail that’s no longer maintained, but still navigable. They got a good omen as they spotted big horn sheep about 50 feet off the trail. In the roughly 30 years he’s been climbing in this area, Mr. Wallace said, he’s only seen these endangered species once before.

The team spotted big horn sheep on their way up the mountain.

Along the trail, the OVS team passed other climbing groups, including adults who showed signs of being less prepared than their pre-teen counterparts. Through that contrast, the students “really got to experience the benefits of their planning,” Inman said. That theme of preparedness came into play again and again as the OVS group hiked through ever-deepening snow, taking regular snack and water breaks and adding waterproof layers. The higher they climbed, the thinner and colder the air became. The wind howled, and the pace slowed. Finally, after four hours, the team reached the summit.

“They were really working hard,” said Mr. Wallace. “But they persevered!”

To learn more about upcoming Outdoor Education trips, visit the Outdoors page.

Success at the top of Mt. Langley is sweet — and rather chilly.

Inspired by a photography assignment, OVS student Evelyn Brokering recently snapped this photo during her free time at the Upper Campus.

“She enjoyed the ‘Silhouette’ assignment last year second semester, and expanded on it this year in a big way,” said photography teacher John Boyd. “There’s a huge series of these, and she intends to take more soon.”