1 minute read
GREAT DESTINATIONS
At SCDS, excellent trips
Dublin. Belfast. County
Advertisement
Galway and County Clare. Then back to Dublin. That’s the high-level itinerary of the eighth-grade’s class trip to Ireland this year, and SCDS teachers spent winter and spring preparing.
Not only do these overnight excursions take an enormous amount of trip planning, but they also take a great deal of curriculum planning. The trips are designed to enhance what the students have learned during the year, especially in the third trimester. Mary Lowry, the eighth-grade social studies teacher at Seattle Country Day School, is excited about the trip and the classroom experiences that precede them. “I’m looking forward to all the Irish folklore and culture and music,” she says. “Their history. Their story.”
At the beginning
The overnight trip program began decades ago, when Doc O (aka science teacher Meredith Olson) was the head of the Middle School. Then, the school enrolled approximately 80 students. The program grew and changed over the years, just as the student population did, with former Middle School Head Dan Sweeney making changes to the program that persist today.
“When Dan was in middle school, he went on a trip to Egypt,” says Eddie Feeley, math teacher. “It made such an impression that he wanted to do