Learning Expeditions: Connecting Classroom and Community

The world of education is like an island where people, cut off from the world, are prepared for life by exclusion from it.  – Maria Montessori, founder of the international Montessori education movement

Connecting classroom to community life is a core element of educating for sustainability at New Roots Charter School.  The benefits to students are many, well-documented in schools around the world:  learning is immediately relevant, students experience how knowledge is applied in the “real world,” and students learn new capacities in themselves as they stretch to engage in new experiences with their peers.

We want all students to enjoy the benefits of meaningful community learning, so we offer extended interdisciplinary courses with sustainability and justice themes that take students out of the building and into the community for extended three-hour “learning expeditions.” 

Freshmen take two “learning expedition” courses that introduce them to our region’s land and people:  Cayuga Watershed and Local Ecosystems.  In grades 10 and 11, students choose from options focusing on local food systems and farming, our region’s Haudenosaunee people and their culture, human rights, natural resources, and sustainable entrepreneurism. 

The perspective developed in these courses lays the groundwork for their senior team capstone project, which requires them to choose an issue of importance to the wider community and develop a solutions-oriented approach to addressing it.

Here are a few recent highlights from learning expeditions at New Roots:

OUR REGION'S ECOSYSTEMS

As part of a unit on topography, water, and soil conservation, students learned to construct and use a method that farmers around the world use to measure contours on the land:  a simple but effective A frame.  Once contour lines are marked, a swale is dug using a hoe to create contours that slow and redirects the flow of surface and groundwater.  Over time the previously-sloped landscape begins to collect rich organic material and slowly transform into a series of terraces, increasing productivity and reducing soil erosion.

OUR REGION'S FOODSHED

Students in "Discovering Our Region's Foodshed" expedition had the opportunity to taste honey fresh out of the hive while on a recent field trip to Three Swallows Farm, run by the Youth Farm Project.  The verdict was "it's delicious!"

HAUDENOSAUNEE CULTURE

Students broke into task forces to research and teach the rest of class about a topic of interest using an active, hands-on learning component.  One task force researched the significance of lacrosse to the Haudenosanee historically and today. They presented their findings to the class and gave them a lesson at the park.

 

CAYUGA WATERSHED

New Roots students from the Cayuga Watershed expedition paired up with second grade students from BJM to check out the Beyond Earth Art exhibit, which included an opportunity to investigate the effects of oil spills on sea creatures. 

On a trip to the City of Ithaca's Water Treatment Plant, students gained an understanding of how the water from 6 Mile Creek is treated and made drinkable for the residents of Ithaca.