CATALYST
CREC Interdistrict Leadership Academy
Discovery Center
Exploring Diversity Through Aquaculture
Metacomet Ridge Interdistrict Academy
Project: Transform
Auer Farm Science Academy
Grades: 2
Participating Districts: Barkhamsted, Bloomfield, Hartford and Simsbury (or other districts as applicable)
The Science Academy will address learning through science inquiry, a valuable and important method to help all children be scientifically literate. Student driven and interactive, success happens because students are actively involved in the learning process. On the farm, lessons are hands on, working with live animals and real plants, keeping children stimulated and engaged. Students integrate mathematical concepts, reading, and writing and vocabulary skills in the inquiry process to uncover the science that is needed to grow food. For some lessons children will have the help of technology, digital and video cameras and GPS units, to resolve their scientific questions. Together at the Auer Farm students will work together using different learning modalities supported through inquiry science to increase their foundation and competency in science.
www.auerfarm.org
CATALYST(sm): Explorations in Sustainable Energy and the Environment
Grades: 9 & 10
Participating Districts: Open to all CREC districts
In cooperation with the CT Center for Advanced Technology, this program helps students develop problem solving, collaboration and communication skills to address real-world issues surrounding sustainable energy and the environment, through hands-on and on-line investigations, science and engineering. Students will explore all aspects of alternative and renewable energy technologies, their relation to global warming, career opportunities, and the roles of society and individuals in managing our energy crisis. CCAT will implement this highly interactive program during after school visits and some Saturday workshops.
CREC Interdistrict Leadership Academy (CRILA)
Grades 11-12
Participating Districts: CREC member districts
Over the course of a full year, students explore the essential skills and abilities in leadership development. The program is designed to foster the types of skills that students will need to be effective leaders in their local schools and communities. Areas of emphasis include communication skills, time management, organization, conflict-resolution strategies, ethical responsibilities of leaders, adjusting to change, dealing with failure and measuring success. The highlight of the course is an Outward Bound West trip focusing on team-building and leadership skills.
Successful completion of the course requirements earns the participating students honors or Advanced Placement credit in their respective high schools.
Download the CREC Interdistrict Leadership Academy application here.
www.creccrila.com
Discovery Center
Grades: 4-6
Participating Districts: CREC member districts
This three-year program partners urban and suburban schools in grades 4, 5 and 6 to enhance student diversity, raise student awareness of diversity issues and to increase student motivation and skills through the use of new and prior knowledge. Students receive pen pals at their partner schools to communicate with online and through partner school visits. The program for fourth-grade students culminates with a day trip to a camp for team-building exercises. Fifth-graders spend a week overnight at the camp, focusing on a common curriculum unit shared by both schools. For sixth graders, Discover Center concludes with a three-day residential camp program focusing on social action.
For more information, please visit the Discovery Center's web site.
Exploring Diversity Through Aquaculture
Grades 9-12
Participating Districts: CREC member districts
This program is an intensive two-week study of the aquaculture industry and its influence on several diverse cultures and economies along the eastern seaboard and the Deep South. It provides students with exposure to a number of universities and research centers and serves as an introduction to the array of professional possibilities in the fisheries and aquaculture industries. Students gain an understanding of the biological, chemical and environmental principles essential to aquaculture production. Students are selected to participate based on science aptitude, teacher recommendations and a written essay. EDA extends the academic year and provides students with expanded learning opportunities in an exciting and motivating atmosphere while facilitating the understanding of diverse cultures and life experiences. High school elective credit is given at the discretion of the sending school. Tuition is $200.
Metacomet Ridge Interdistrict Academy
Grades: 7-12
Participating Districts: Open to all CREC districts
In this program, students from a wide variety of racial, ethnic and sociological backgrounds collaborate on an interdisciplinary, geographic study of the Metacomet Ridge. Through field studies, interschool visits and exchanges of information through technology, students acquire highly technical scientific skills and use technology and scientific equipment to collect information. Teams of students collect, organize and analyze data to produce reports for the Connecticut State Department of Environmental Protection and to develop presentations about their findings. This program builds critical thinking, technology competency, scientific understanding, scientific research and many other skills.
Project: Transform
Grades: 9-12
Participating Districts: Open to all CREC districts
In this program, developed in collaboration with Hartford Stage and Leadership Greater Hartford, students will create and perform a devised piece of theatre under the guidance of artists-in-residence from Hartford Stage. The performance piece will explore the idea of transformation of minds, neighborhoods, and communities. The program will empower students to use art to transform minds, neighborhoods, and communities. Students will view community murals painted by Leadership Greater Hartford and will perform their final piece in one of these transformed spaces. Students will also come together to view Hartford Stage’s main stage production of Gee’s Bend, a story that is both set in a community that is physically, racially, and economically isolated, and celebrates a family of quilters who used their art form to document the struggles for Civil Rights in their community. In the spirit of piece-work that pervades muraling and quilting, participants will create their own piece of performance art, a collage of voices representing themselves, their families, neighborhoods, and communities, with the purpose of celebrating cultures and inspiring transformation and change. Led by a diverse team of artists and staff members, students from different backgrounds, including race, ethnicity, and social class, will build positive, meaningful relationships through the collaborative process of writing, creating and performing. The program will conclude in an outdoor public performance open to families, friends, and the entire community.
Go to top of page
Visit us on Facebook