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Off-Campus Adventures: Field Trips Return in Full Force

Outdoor Education Program

at the Swain School Campus

By Jennifer Mitchell

The Swain School Campus has an active Outdoor Education program that blends, supports, and bolsters the classroom experience. Each grade offers developmentally appropriate outdoor field trips that are tailored to enhance classroom curriculum. The overall goal of the Outdoor Education program is to provide immersive exposure to nature where students can learn about the world around them and interact with peers in new and challenging ways. To achieve these goals, each grade takes a series of trips throughout the year. Although the program officially begins in fourth grade, the beginning and lower school also offers outdoor opportunities to support the mission of the Outdoor Education Program.

In the fall of 2021, students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade benefited from the program by visiting a variety of outdoor education organizations across Lehigh, Berks, and Northampton counties.

Pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first grade students visited the Dorothy Rider Pool Wildlife Sanctuary, a Wildlands Conservancy location in Emmaus, PA. They explored wildlife, connected with the world around them, and enhanced their science and social studies curriculum with in-depth and hands-on experiences.

Hawk Mountain Sanctuary hosted our second and third grade students for an immersive expansion of their science curriculum including a local to global approach to conservation and environmental protection.

Fourth grade students hiked a section of the Appalachian Trail as a part of their social studies unit on Appalachia History & Geography. Team building is introduced as they learn games and challenges along their hike. Group dynamics are the focus of fifth through eighth grade, as the students took a day to work on personal development and team building through guided activities and an outdoor high ropes course at Blue Mountain Resort.

In addition to our academic outdoor curriculum, we offer optional experiences for grades three through eighth. These trips are designed to serve students that want to go above and beyond the experiences provided in the Outdoor Education program. Recently, some seventh and eighth students set up camp on the Sassafras River in Maryland where they fished, camped, kayaked and spent time relaxing outdoors.

A Sweet Field Trip:

Third Grade Goes Maple Sugaring

By Alejandro Monedero, Jackie Andreychak, and Valarie Kuehner

Third grade explored the Kettle Creek Environmental Center where students went maple sugaring. We visited a sugarbush, an area in the forest where maple trees are tapped to collect sap. The students learned about the process and history of making maple syrup firsthand including hands-on instruction on tapping a tree and a taste of the real all-natural maple syrup. This educational program was designed to be an outdoor (and cold!) learning experience with history and ecology as its main theme.

“My favorite part about going to the sugar bush was when we learned about how the Native Americans made maple syrup.”

-- Theo ’31:

“Lo que más me gustó fue probar el sirope de Arce, el sabor fue increíble y aunque fuera un poquito fue como estar flotando en el aire.”

-- Andrew ’31

(Spanish Immersion Program)

Meditation and Mindfulness with Reset Outdoors

By Dr. Catherine Moore

In November and December, all the Class of 2023 embarked on a light hike and solitude experience in nature with Reset Outdoors. Much like the work of Dalia el-Fahum and her dissertation of collecting the sounds of her natural environment in Colum McCann’s Apeirogon, we spent time outdoors in Jacobsburg State Park, being mindful of ourselves and the space we inhabit.

“I was a little nervous but mostly excited about the experience,” said one student. “I was worried about how I would deal with being alone with my thoughts for such an extended period of time without distractions like music. I was comforted by the confidence and kindness shown from the very beginning by Connor and the rest of the Reset Outdoors team.”

Exploring Near and Far

in Outdoor Education

Outdoor Education with Mr. Ferdinand not only returned but expanded to include seventh and eighth-graders this year! Groups of faculty, students, and parents ventured out to local hiking trails and parks to take in the great outdoors together on a series of weekend trips. Bonding and beautiful views? Sign us up!

Students Embark on Southwestern Adventure for Spring Break

Moravian Academy partnered with Cottonwood Gulch, an organization that “creates outdoor learning adventures for youth from all backgrounds that foster personal growth, strengthen community, and inspire stewardship of the natural world” to give students an unforgettable experience.

By Jeff Zemsky

On Sunday, March 20, 2022, eighth-graders from the Swain and Downtown Campuses departed for the trip of a lifetime in New Mexico, along with Head of School Jeff Zemsky and teachers Gonzalo del Real (Merle-Smith Campus) and Erin Coffey (Swain Campus).

During their adventure, students: • Traveled on a day trip through

Gallup, New Mexico, to near

Window Rock, Arizona, to visit a farm on the Dine Resevation, where we learned how to make fry bread and Navajo tacos. • Explored an ancestral Puebloan ruin and hiked up to see the cliffs pictured on this issue’s cover.

Along the way, we sang, talked about how the red rocks formed, and played silly games. • Climbed rocks, hiked, and continued to explore the vast ruins of Chaco Canyon. • Bonded around the campfire as we discussed how to lean into our personal challenge zones and how to recognize our growth and the support from others around us. • Learners returned with many stories ⁠— and hopefully many life lessons. It was wonderful to watch them make the change from just seeking experiences to furthering the expedition by working together. We talked about living in the challenge zone, asking for support from others, and being responsible for ourselves and for others. We learned life lessons and formed new friendships that learners will take with them into the future.

LEARN MORE ABOUT COTTONWOOD GULCH EXPEDITION AT www.cottonwoodgulch.org.

Acclaimed Authors Meet with Students

Dragons, Giants, Women and Wayétu

By Elena Capobianco ’23

The Merle-Smith Campus was treated to a special in-person visit from author Wayétu Moore, whose memoir The Dragons, The Giant, The Women will be read by ninth graders as part of the FIRE curriculum in the spring semester.

Wayétu was born in Liberia in West Africa and immigrated to the United States in the midst of the Liberian Civil War in the early 1990s. Her memoir documents those experiences, beginning from the perspective of herself as a five-year-old relatively unaware of the dangers, and the “Dragons,” surrounding her. Her father, Augustus Moore, the “Giant” of the story, shepherds her family across the Liberian border into Sierra Leone and eventually to the U.S., where his wife, Wayétu’s mother, was studying on a Fulbright Scholarship.

Ms. Moore folded back a new layer of her identity with each new slide of her presentation. She struck creativity and curiosity into the hearts of her captive listeners as she brought them with her on a journey of self discovery.

Initially, the definition of identity seems simple. Identity is who you are and how you perceive yourself yet, why is it so difficult to describe one’s own identity? The reason for this dilemma is easily answered: an identity cannot be described in one word. For example, Ms. Moore is a mother, an author, a Texan, a Liberian, and an inspiration to young students looking to find themselves.

To put it simply, Ms. Moore opened her audience’s eyes to the idea that identity is ever changing. She asked to look inward and think about who we really are and she has impacted her listeners’ identities through sharing her journey in finding her own.

THIS IS AN EXCERPT. TO READ THE FULL STORY INCLUDING STUDENT REFLECTIONS, VISIT www.moravianacademy.org/wayetu

The University and the Universe:

A Visit from Ken Ilgunas

By Julia Fox

Journalist, author, and backcountry park ranger Ken Ilgunas spoke to Merle-Smith Campus students on October 20, 2021.

Ken Ilgunas is the author of several memoirs, including Trespassing Across America, an account of his 1,700-mile hike along the route of the Keystone XL pipeline. After sharing his story with students during assemblies in Dyer Auditorium, Ilgunas offered advice for aspiring writers and adventurers alike.

“There’s the university and the universe, “ he says. “All the schools we go to that we’re either required or encouraged to enroll in. Then there’s the universe, which is absolutely everything outside of the university. And I think you kind of need both to have a full education.”

When asked if he has writing advice for Moravian Academy students, Ilgunas says that the key is to “create conditions for yourself to write in the most honest and uncensored way possible.” And, of course, he adds that reading widely and writing consistently are important, too.

Moravian Academy thanks Ilgunas for inspiring our learners to go on their own adventures!

Apeirogon-auts Assemble!

By Dr. Brian Crowe

“We don’t have to love each other. We don’t even have to like each other,” says award-winning author Colum McCann, “But we must understand each other.”

On Wednesday, November 17, ninth and eleventh graders gathered in Dyer Auditorium for a special Zoom Q&A session with Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon and winner of the National Book Award for a previous novel, Let the Great World Spin. Our students joined with others from schools across the country who had also read Apeirogon, which centers around the stories of two men, one Palestinian (Bassam Aramin) and the other Israeli (Rami Elhanan), who have both lost daughters to violence relating to the larger conflicts in the region.

In relation to his work as a novelist, McCann is also cofounder of Narrative 4 (N4), an organization that “uses personal storytelling to build empathy between young people so they can improve their communities and the world together.” Over the summer, English teachers Drs. Brian Crowe and Catherine Moore attended a Narrative 4 conference in Kentucky that focused on curriculum development, and many students have recently expressed interest in and begun training as N4 Story Exchange Facilitators.

THIS IS AN EXCERPT. TO READ THE FULL STORYAND VIDEO, VISIT www.moravianacademy.org/mccann

Marking Marking Moravian History Moravian History

By Rev. Jennifer Nichols

Two hundred fifty years ago in 1766, a small group of women and girls migrated on foot from the Moravian School for Girls in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to open a new school for girls in Salem, North Carolina.

Of the 20 walkers, there were twelve girls aged 13 to 17. One of those girls, Salome Meurer, kept a detailed journal of her travels. And this fall, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Salem Academy and College, a small group of women recreated a similar month-long walk from Bethlehem to Salem, using Salome’s journal to recreate their journey. Before they left from Bethlehem, these historic reenactors took time to meet with our second and seventhgrade classes, both of whom study Moravian history as a part of their curriculum. They shared their research process, what they learned about our educational ancestors, and what it meant to them to bring history to life in this way. They also shared the stories of those who walked 250 years ago, including Salome, age 16, Elizabeth Oesterlein, age 17, who attended the Girls School in Bethlehem and became the first teacher at the girls’ school in Salem, and Anna Rosina Boeckel, age 14, who eventually returned to Bethlehem and is buried in God’s Acre on the Downtown Campus. Our second-graders loved hearing about the maps that modern walkers used to reenact the route, since they studied maps as part of a social studies unit. And we all enjoyed imagining the 500-mile journey, and what it was like 250 years ago, versus what it would be like for the women walking in their memory. Many volunteers worked for over a year to plan the modern trip, and the walkers arrived in North Carolina on October 26.

After their presentation, our secondgraders gathered in God’s Acre to locate and lay flowers on the grave of Anna Rosina Boeckel. Now when they walk through the cemetery on their way to lunch, they can see her marker and remember her story, and this connection to our past.

Holiday Happenings

We had so much to celebrate across cultures and campuses. Here are a few highlights!

The Day of the Dead ofrenda, or altar, is a pre-Hispanic tradition that has lasted centuries and has become an integrated part of the Catholic religion in Mexico and Central America. Students created a community ofrenda honoring loved ones or icons who have passed on. | Merle-Smith Campus

Second-grade celebrated Setsubun, a Japanese holiday that commemorates the coming of spring, by crafting spirit masks with something they should improve about themselves written on the back. On Setsubun, learners went outside and cast out bad spirits by throwing birdseed while declaring “Oni wa soto!” (“Bad spirits get out!”) | Downtown Campus

With so much to be thankful for, students marked Thanksgiving with a favorite tradition, Harvest Feast! Swain School Campus

Halloween is a favorite, especially for our Swain and Downtown Campus learners. We saw a lot of great costumes during Trunk or Treat events (Swain) and the return of the parade with first-grade/senior buddies!

Big smiles and bright colors shined during the spring celebration of Holi, the festival of colors celebrated in the Hindu tradition. | Merle-Smith Campus