Welcome

Last year's trip to Costa Rica showed us that education can, and should, be a life-altering experience. This year, a largely new group of students, have decided to learn about and travel to Puerto Rico. With this new topic and destination in mind, we have developed a year-long interdisciplinary class that is based on the same three core principles:

1) Travel to expand students' horizons
2) An explicit connection between the classroom and real world
3) The use of sweat equity for students to see that their efforts can make a difference

During the early fall, the curriculum was largely focused on developing the 21st Century Skills of problem solving, critical thinking, decision-making, and collaboration. This was initially done using group challenges in the classroom, but then became vitally important once we started raking lawns. In addition to being our major fundraiser, this hard work put students in positions that required group problem solving, as well as perseverance and responsibility – traits that we all know are central to changing the trajectory of their lives.

During the winter and spring, each student will be developing an independent research project on a chosen aspect of Puerto Rico. We hope that you will keep checking back as we share our learning, growth and adventures.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Damien's Puerto Rico project: The Guardians of the Carribbean and other forts


I have decided on a topic and done some of my research on my project. I have decided to do my project on the three forts that make up the Guardians of the Caribbean and other forts of Puerto Rico. I decided on this subject because the architecture and the history around all of it fascinates me. When we go to Puerto Rico my plan is to film a tour of the tour-able forts following the history of what each piece of the fort has. I also want to point out the architecture that has been lost over the years and what we kept alive and still use.
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1 comment:

  1. Ellen GFebruary 3, 2012 at 8:31 AM

    Damien,

    This sounds like a very cool project and I look forward to watching it unfold! "The Guardians of the Caribbean" is such an awesome title too. It almost sounds like a title for an action film.

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