2023 Experiences – Page 2 – Intensive Learning @ MFS

Arts and Entertainment, Day Five — Disney 100 at the Franklin Institute

March 31, 2023March 31, 2023Arts and Entertainment

Today at 9:00 am, we boarded the bus for our trip to the Franklin Institute Museum in Philadelphia. The museum has recently opened an exhibit to celebrate the 100th anniversary of The Walt Disney Company, and for our last trip of the week, we decided to visit. The exhibit displayed various different interactive videos...

South Jersey Service, Days Five and Six — Habitat for Humanity & Final Reflection

March 31, 2023April 3, 2023South Jersey Service

Thursday, March 30 For our last trip, we went down to the ReStore warehouse in Maple Shade, where we were welcomed by a staff member named George. Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit organization that uses its profits to build homes and give people the opportunity to afford decent housing. When we arrived at...

The Final Hike — Franklin Parker Preserve

March 31, 2023March 31, 2023Pine Barrens

Today, the group visited Franklin Parker Preserve. We left school at 9 AM and took a 40-minute bus ride to the Chatsworth Lake entrance to the preserve. When we arrived, we were eager to quickly start our hike, as it was very cold and windy. As we were hiking, we saw bridges, blue jays,...

Final Preparation for Sacco and Vanzetti

March 31, 2023March 31, 2023Historical Mock Trial

May it please the court, our fifth day began with the introduction of another mini mock trial. This case involved the hitting of a cyclist on a crosswalk by a driver. How far our lawyers have come! Each side wove together clear narratives based on witness testimony. They found flaws in the assumptions of...

Songwriting Seminar, Day Five

March 31, 2023March 31, 2023Songwriting Seminar

First, we made a list of 10 song titles we like and why we like them. Then, each student made 10 fake titles, and we added them all to a Google Doc. Next, we made a verse and chorus for one of the 100+ titles in the Google Doc and shared them with each...

Our last full day in Iceland

March 31, 2023March 31, 2023Iceland: Ice & Fire

We woke up for our last full day of the Iceland Intensive Learning trip in the capital, Reykjavík. After waking up and eating breakfast at the Fosshotel, we headed out for horseback riding at noon. When we arrived at the Íshestar Horse Riding Center, we watched an instructional video that taught us the correct...

Roman ruins, pasta, & pizza!

March 31, 2023March 31, 2023Italy

This morning, instead of boarding our spacious bus that we had grown accustomed to, we squeezed ourselves into a van to navigate the morning rush hour in Downtown Roma. Once we arrived at the destination, we were greeted by the ruins of ancient Roman arches, buildings, and the arena. Carla, our local tour guide,...

The Lake District — Dove Cottage, Grasmere, and a rainy walk

March 30, 2023March 30, 2023Literary England

Today was a very special day for the group, as we paid a visit to historic Dove Cottage, the home of Romantic poet (and namesake of the MFS student news publication) William Wordsworth from 1799-1808. But, before we visited the quaint home, we made the three hour trek from the Peak District to the...

Germany, Day Six — Dachau Concentration Camp and Memorial, and Munich

March 30, 2023March 30, 2023Tour of Germany

Guten Nacht! After breakfast at 9 AM, we started our day with a two-hour drive to Bavaria and the Munich area. This drive ended with our arrival at Dachau concentration camp. We started our time there with a ten-minute silent worship, where we centered ourselves and got ready to go in and see the...

South Jersey Service, Day Four — Urban Promise

March 30, 2023March 30, 2023South Jersey Service

On our fourth day of Intensive Learning, the South Jersey Service Group was at Urban Promise in Camden. First, we worked on cleaning the perimeter and getting rid of trash lying around nearby. Then a group brought items like chairs to the art room at another building. Before lunch started some of us picked...

Unwrapping the Wonders of Life & Nature

March 30, 2023March 30, 2023Hands-On Science

Plant Dissection During our biology day, we started the day by working on our use of microscopes while observing different animal cells through different types of lenses. Getting more into the beauty that comes with nature, while observing the different types of animal cells, I noticed a broad spectrum of different types of beautiful patterns...

Arts and Entertainment, Day Four — Theatre Service and SIX the Musical!

March 30, 2023March 30, 2023Arts and Entertainment

Our fourth day of Intensive Learning started out with some on-campus service opportunities. This included cleaning up in the auditorium, painting sets, inventory of our prop collection, and organizing the lighting booth. It was a gratifying experience to see our auditorium renewed. Everyone worked for a while before we stopped for lunch; some groups...

The Fairytale Ending that leads back to reality

March 30, 2023March 30, 2023Give Kids the World

Today is a day that many of us looked forward to. The day at Magic Kingdom finally arrived! We ventured through the four magical lands of the Magic Kingdom: Adventure Land, Frontier Land, Fantasy Land, and Tomorrow Land. A few foxes in our IL group found themselves on many high-intensity rides, including Space Mountain...

Tea and Tai Chi

March 30, 2023March 30, 2023Chinese Culture

Today in Chinese Culture, we started our day off by watching traditional Chinese opera. We watched three different types: Cantonese, Shanghai area, and northwestern China. The kind of opera differs by region. Then, we watched a few videos about Chinese Tea Ceremonies. We got to sample Pu’erh tea, which is a type of fermented...

Folk Art, Day Four — Getting Fired Up!

March 30, 2023March 30, 2023Folk Art & Living Simply

Folk art’s day, to put it simply: “We dug a hole.” More to the point, we dug out a large hole in the field by the Gaga Pit, which is not something you see every day! But let’s start at the beginning. After the success of the past two days of macrame and baskets,...