Student Travel Opportunities
Marine Biology
Students in the Marine Biology program are required to take an intensive multi-week course prior to Spring Break in Layton, Florida. Students learn about marine life, ecosystems, grass beds, coral reefs, and much more related to marine biology. While in Layton, students will be able to do the following:
- Snorkel the John Pennekamp State Park reef
- Explore the Florida Key’s mangrove ecosystem
- Learn how climate change is affecting marine life
- Tour the Marathon Sea Turtle Hospital and learn how they rehabilitate and release these gentle creatures
- Spend an evening in Key West
- and much much more.
P.E. in the Rockies
The “P.E. in the Rockies” backpacking trip is an elective summer course/trip offered to 8th-grade students who complete the school year in good standing through an application process. Students will meet for three six-hour mandatory classroom sessions in April/May and then participate in a fifteen-day sightseeing and backpacking trip to Colorado in July. Those who complete the classroom experience can earn one high school Physical Education credit.
The trip portion of the course includes visits to Colorado Springs (Garden of the Gods), Great Sand Dunes National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, Telluride, the Mt. Sneffels Wilderness Area, the Ouray Hot Springs, and whitewater rafting on the Colorado River. Students tent camp along the way, sharing a tent and camping equipment with a partner they have selected from the group. The trip culminates in a five-day wilderness experience during which students hike, explore, and put into practice the wilderness skills they have learned in the classroom.
French Trip
The French Trip is designed to strengthen a student’s French language skills through full immersion and expose students to French culture in both the fast-paced big city life of Paris and the relaxed charming countryside village of Blois. Students will have the opportunity to try a variety of French cuisine including snails, baguettes, macarons, croissants, café, beef tartare, and fromage blanc; and students will learn about the history of France by visiting museums and other cultural attractions such as the Eiffel Tower, Le Louvre, Versailles, Sacré-Coeur, the gardens of Luxembourg, a typical open-air market, the castles Chenonceau and Chambord, and Notre Dame.
We are hoping to expand our next trip to include two weeks in southern France where students will be able to attend French classes taught by local teachers in the morning and stay with host families. This will allow students to experience yet another region of France and further deepen their confidence and usage of the French language.
The Stratford Festival Experience
Generating enthusiasm and excellence in reading and understanding literature extends well beyond the classroom at GHS. Since 1978, the English department has taken students to Ontario, Canada, to the Stratford Festival, one of the premier repertory theaters on the North American continent.
Students read and study four or five plays before the trip that we take over Labor Day weekend, (Thursday-Saturday). During class sessions, which are held both inside and outside the regular school day, we discuss the works and also how plays can be interpreted on stage. We learn the historical background and social milieu of the playwrights and plays. We study the history of theater and the types of plays produced that particular season at Stratford. Students complete and present projects, write papers, act scenes, listen to lectures, research, journal, discuss, take quizzes, and finish coursework in early November after the trip with a comprehensive final exam and a major culminating project.
Of course, the trip itself is the high point of the class. Besides experiencing the plays, while in Stratford we tour the costume warehouse or backstage areas, participate in a “chat’ with actors either before or after production, and sometimes enjoy a seminar on a topic such as stage combat. The education office at the Festival is generous with resources and help in scheduling the extras.
We are proud of this program that inspires students and teachers to experience the joy of dramatic literature firsthand.