Lister Leaf Busters

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 21^st 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.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Hello world...... I had a great trip to Puerto Rico this year. this year I learned a lot about my self and others in the class. I learned I have patience when it comes to not being able to do something I keep trying until I get it right. I learned I can work in a team with others for a while. I never thought some of the others would be able to work in a team setting but they did. I changed a lot over the year I went from not liking half the people in the class to liking everyone. I liked like two people at the beginning and as time got shorter we all grew closer. Travel changes people I know this from a first hand experience I went from not caring about anything other than my self to looking at the bigger picture getting along with people I don't like to achieve a goal we set out to achieve. We all worked with each other no matter out back round. I got a lot from this trip like how I proved I can do something and not just be a trouble maker and i'm glad I got to prove it to other people.