May 15, 2001 – All 16 of the middle school students from St. John's new Coral Bay School returned this weekend from an 11-day tour of the U.S. Southwest.
"The tour of the Four Corners area of the the Southwest is part of the school's integrated learning curriculum that combines hands-on experiences with what's being taught in the classroom," Scott Crawford, co-administrator of the private school explained. Such a trip will be an annual event at the school, although it's optional, he said.
"Four Corners" refers to the juncture of Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. The students' activities in the area included hiking in the Grand Canyon, visiting cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park, seeing the Petrified Forest at the Sunset Crater Volcanic National Museum, taking a guided tour of an old silver mine at Silverton, Colo., camping in Arizona's Canyon de Chelly National Park, and visiting a Navajo reservation to see how history, heritage and modern life co-exist, Crawford said.
"I thought the trip was very inspirational," seventh grader Ben Gibbud said. "It was really educational. We were able to see places that we had already read about." Plus, he said, "I liked the idea that the whole school could participate."
Chutney Mohler's overall impression of the Southwest was that "It was big!" She added, "It seems we could have stayed there our entire life and never stopped learning."
"It was the best school trip I've ever been on," 12-year-old Alexa Putnam said, beaming. "It was a really good experience for all involved, and we are really grateful to the school for making it possible."
The seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders were accompanied on the trip by five chaperons including school administrators and parents. The tour was made possible through school fees, a fund raiser and a donation by the school.
Now that they're back home and back in their formal classes, the students are preparing a journal of the tour that will be published and sold at a School Community Night in early June, Crawford said. The younsters also will present a slide show and oral reports on their travels at the event, which will be held in the Pine Peace School Great Room.
Now nearing the end of its first academic year, Coral Bay School will add a grade in each of the next three years until it offers grades 7 through 12. It will continue to have a school trip "while we are still small enough," Crawford said. Next year, with 10th grade added, he said, "we will have about 30 students and will accommodate everyone on the same trip. As we grow into the future, we will likely break it up into a high school trip and a middle school trip."