After a several-years’ hiatus for the GPS Winterim program, offerings for the Upper School Winterim in 2016 have many groups engaged in creative activity on campus and other teams enjoying and learning about the outdoor adventures unique to the Chattanooga area.
On campus, one group of students is learning about the book art medium and, facilitated by book artists Juanita Tumelaire and Ellen Simak of the Open Press, making their own books. Another course challenges students to create videos in Spanish – choreography, music, and lyrics – to use in all the Spanish classes as instructional aids. A third class is engaged in a four-day study of the history of projectile weaponry, building catapults, learning archery at the local archery range, and coming to a greater appreciation of the mathematics lurking behind projectiles as well as their impact on various eras of history.
A creative writing workshop welcomes Adrian Matejka, a musical storyteller of a poet and writer of The Big Smoke. Another writing class is using creative writing and visual arts to study the question, “What does it look like and require to practice empathy in a world of unshared experience?”
A virtual exchange class has been chatting via Skype with some British students from the Wycombe Abbey School for Girls. After research on each other's school, the two classes held discussions about the British culture and the upcoming U.S. election. The GPS class also enjoyed afternoon tea at the English Rose tearoom.
Among the groups enjoying the outdoors, even in the snow, is “History and Beauty of the Cumberland Plateau: A Hiking Tour.” The first day involved a hike of the Black Mountain Loop Trail near Crossville, entering the trail through the Stone Door and eating lunch looking south over a spectacular panorama of the Grassy Cove, the Tennessee River, and beyond to the high mountains of the Cherokee National Forest, according to faculty sponsor Bryant Haynes.
Faculty members Angela Langevin and Julie McElroy are sponsoring Extreme Natural History, a mini-course that takes girls on outdoor adventures to learn what it means to be a steward of natural resources, and also what it means to be a naturalist. The students are learning about the natural histories of the birds, plants, lichens, rocks and mammals in expeditions on the Tennessee River Gorge Trust lands, caving, rock climbing, and bird watching.
Back at GPS, another mini-course is teaching how to be stewards of the Chattanooga community. After an overview of local non-profits, including the start-up and fundraising processes, students go through the process of identifying and defining a community problem, brainstorming and problem solving using the design thinking process, and pitching their proposal. A crash course in 3D printing, curatorial workshops, tutoring at Eastside Elementary, and a four-day film camp were among the many classes offering "outside the box" educational experiences. Click here for a slideshow of Winterim photos.
Several groups took roads out of Chattanooga: one to NYC for daily dance workshops, one to Nashville for a peek at the workings of state government at the Tennessee State Capitol and Senate chambers; two class trips to Disney World; and one to Atlanta’s Bodies Exhibition as part of a “Wonders of the Human Body” course.
Whether in or out of the classroom, engaged in the Chattanooga community, dancing in New York studios or hiking in the snow, there was lots to learn during GPS’s Winterim week of classes, said officials.
GPS Winterim hiking