Our students attend a public charter school in Massachusetts. Central to our school's charter and mission is project-based curriculum relying less on traditional tests and quizzes and more on collaborative planning and public presentation of their work.
At the end of each school year, every student participates in a hands-on experiential program for their last week of school.
We call this Endersession, and the programs vary from service trips overseas to arts-based programs on our campus to sessions designed to introduce students to completely new experiences.
I am leading a 6-day road trip through Pennsylvania, New York and Vermont called "Traveling the Underground Railroad." We are tracing the lives of people who escaped slavery and those who offered assistance from the Mason-Dixon line to Canada's border.
My Project
Our trip will include stops in Philadelphia (to visit the foundation of the Presidential mansion where George Washington kept enslaved people); taking night hikes; a Lake Ontario boat tour; and visits to the homes and graves of William Still, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and John Brown.
This project seeks audio recording equipment to enable students to document their experiences along routes of the Underground Railroad.
As we travel, students will record themselves and each other, ambient environmental sounds, and guides we encounter. These recordings will serve as audio diaries and we will compile these into podcasts which we can distribute to other members of our community.
Our goal is to trace our way through history as we explore the Underground Railroad in a hands-on format.
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