Interdisciplinary Experience
Middle Years (rising 8th grade and 9th grade)
August 6 - August 17*
*One week option available for August 6-10
an interactive exploration of environmental stewardship

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
The Interdisciplinary Experience will open new vistas for students as they come to understand the environment and their futures in the world. Combining discussions, debates, creative practices, hands-on design, and site visits, students will explore environmental science and stewardship.

Part 1: Works: Leading Green

Example Activities:

• Water conservation challenge: students identify waste-points in daily water use
• Earth 2.0: re-imagine and design a sustainable society from scratch
• Visit a waste management facility: students see first-hand the path that their food scraps take after they’ve thrown them away
• Daily explorations to Frelinghuysen Arboretum

Part 2: Words: Speaking Green

Example Activities:

• Narratives of Nature: how can first-person stories about nature change how we understand natural systems?
• Call the foul: learn to recognize argumentative fallacies and apply them all in a disastrously bad debate. Worst argument wins!
• Improv brainstorms: improvise to anticipate the problems encountered during environmental catastrophes

Part 3: Understanding Green

Example Activities:

• Testing the Waters: students sample the local Whippany river to discover what goes into our water and how it changes over time
• Predicting the Big One: students take a global look at tectonics and the threats they pose around the world on the Science on a Sphere
• Drought, Famine, and Farming: students study solutions for farms and countries that face resource shortages and population changes