Pacific Ridge School Students Travel Locally and Globally to Develop Perspectives

June 5, 2009 - PRLog -- CARLSBAD, Calif. –  With global engagement as a cornerstone of Pacific Ridge School’s mission, students develop from local citizens to world travelers to world citizens. Each year, Pacific Ridge School (http://www.pacificridge.org) middle and upper school students participate in educational enrichment trips to destinations in the U.S. and beyond. This year, the Carlsbad school’s trips include the following:

Seventh Grade – Headlands Institute, Calif. Pacific Ridge School students will participate in water testing, tide pool studies, plant growth observations, and both day and night hiking to put their life sciences lessons into context in an open, natural environment just north of San Francisco.

Eighth Grade – Washington, D.C. Pacific Ridge School students will spend three days and four nights engrossed in American history and culture.  They will visit Gettysburg, the Capitol building and the Holocaust Museum, among other places, as they contextualize their study of the country’s origins and more recent past.

Ninth Grade – Bejing and Shanghai, China. Pacific Ridge School students will visit monuments important to Chinese history including the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, and the Forbidden City.  Students will also experience the culture firsthand when they spend several days with a host family from Shidong High School, Pacific Ridge’s sister school in Shanghai.  Next January, the Carlsbad students plan to host these same students in North County, San Diego.

Tenth Grade – Sierra Nevada, Calif. Pacific Ridge School students will travel to Sierra Nevada for a California Wilderness Trip.  Through activities such as backpacking, white water rafting and hiking, the Carlsbad-based students will develop leadership skills as they become comfortable, competent and confident in new and unfamiliar environments.  They will also spend two days working on a service learning project based on ecology and “leave no trace” environmentalism.

Pacific Ridge School students come to understand their interdependence with other cultures through educational enrichment trips, as well as through relationships with sister schools in other parts of the world, service learning projects in local and global communities, and a diverse and international teaching staff.

The Carlsbad students will return the second week of June from their urban and outdoor experiences after taking part in this key component of the Pacific Ridge School curriculum that incorporates academic excellence, ethical responsibility, and global engagement. For more information about the Carlsbad non-profit, independent middle and upper school, visit http://www.pacificridge.org.

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About Pacific Ridge School:
Opened in the fall of 2007, Pacific Ridge School is a non‐profit, independent middle and high school located in North County, San Diego. With the distinctive mission of building a community that fosters academic excellence, ethical responsibility and global engagement, Pacific Ridge School offers a first-rate educational experience to prepare students for college and a purposeful life. For more information on the Carlsbad-based, visit: http://www.pacificridge.org. Pacific Ridge School does not discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, sexual orientation, race, creed, or national origin in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, and other administered programs.