Each year our 7th grade students spend three days at the Disney parks participating in various Youth Education Series programs. Student gets hands-on, behind-the-scenes access

in each park as they study physics, oceanography, career discovery and cultures around the world with certified Y.E.S. teachers. Students stay at Disney’s All-Star Resort during this trip. Our students have learned to train dolphins, developed their own civilization and culture, designed roller coasters, explored career opportunities and developed a campaign to save Florida’s endangered manatee.

The trip begins at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center where the 8th graders go on a scavenger hunt searching for answers to questions concerning Lewis and Clark’s expedition west.

Then they spend three nights on the banks of the Missouri River where they go hiking, canoeing and primitive camping. The trip culminates with the students having canoed 47 miles down the Missouri River and having hiked up to the Hole in the Wall. Their knowledge of Lewis and Clark’s experience becomes their own personal experience. To students’ sense of Lewis and Clark’s accomplishments is added the sense of their own accomplishments.

Upper School students have the unique opportunity to earn high school credit and community service hours while embarking on the adventure of a lifetime.

Students participating in the Summer Educational Adventure Program will explore El Yunque, the spectacular rainforest of Puerto Rico; tour Old San Juan, one of the oldest settlements in the Americas; and study Taino culture, a tribe indigenous to the island. Students will then make their way to the smaller Puerto Rican island of Vieques. There they will spend a week among wild horses and natural beauty as they study the ecology and politics of this Caribbean paradise.

During this three-day, two -night program our 6th grade students face a variety of challenges. They take part in many activities designed to increase critical thinking and the ability to make healthy choices.

Activities also strengthen the bonds of friendships, trust and mutual respect, teach conflict resolution and an appreciation of diversity, and stimulate responsibility and positive self esteem. Additionally, students study Florida’s ecology and their relationships with the natural environment. The students sleep in climate-controlled lodges and eat meals in a modern dining room. Campfire circles, air-conditioned classrooms, nature trails and playing fields are some of the features included in this trip.