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Experiential Learning Activities
Click here to see the new, student-created ELA website!
Not your typical field trip, ELAs (Experiential Learning Activities)
are part of a new educational program at Sola Fide. Luke Hartzell, Former Principal and Developer of ELA at Sola Fide
emphasizes, "Trips like these help students better relate to classroom learning and better prepare them to
be productive citizens through use of their God-given gifts, talents, and abilities. Experiential learning, through
planned trips and impromptu learning opportunities, plays an important role in the overall education of children by reinforcing
first hand what they are studying."
ELA
#4 - Operation Domestication -
Spring 2008
Click
on image below to enlarge. The photos posted below are from our fourth Experiential Learning Activity—ELA
#4, “Operation Domestication.” We traveled to the houses of three school families in our surrounding communities
to practice our “domestic living skills.” During this Experiential Learning Activity, the students
gained a greater appreciation for how much work their parents do to make their lives so incredibly good! They
accomplished this by completing various experiences including: general indoor cleaning, laundry, lawn mowing, landscaping,
raking, trimming, planning, cooking, serving, and cleaning up after a typical family meal, and more! During
this activity, the students were also able to put their faith into action by living the words of our theme passage for the
school year from Ephesians 5:1-2: “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life
of love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” It
was an incredible learning experience for students and chaperones alike! This ELA is part of a push to make Sola Fide Christian School a place where experiential learning plays a greater
role. By implementing experiential learning at Sola Fide, we can truly help our students to be the most productive possible
citizens of Christ’s earthly and heavenly kingdoms through the use and exploration of their various gifts, talents,
and abilities.
ELA
# 3 - Low Country Adventure - Spring 2007
Click on images below to enlarge.
Embarking on a 3-day trip, the students of Sola Fide
left the walls of their school behind and expanded the boundaries of their minds as they traveled to the Low Country of South
Carolina. Listening to native Gullah tell stories in their English-based Creole language, students gained appreciation
first hand for the importance of preserving cultural heritages. The Gullah people, a unique culture of African Americans
living in South Carolina and Georgia, are best known for preserving their heritage through language, beliefs, storytelling,
music, and food.
While staying in Charleston and Edisto Beach areas, the third through eighth grade students experienced
incredible opportunities for fun and learning: canoeing through an untouched section of backwater swamp, observing life
under a high-powered TV microscope, riding in a bateaux, learning about yearly Loggerhead turtle migration on the beaches
of South Carolina and Georgia, dissecting a squid, seining in the ocean to collect specimens of sea life, and eating low country
cuisine. And the fund didn't end when the trip did. Students shot footage while on their trip and created
their own documentary for a social studies assignment. Who knows, maybe one of them will be sharing their heritage one
day at Sundance.
ELA
#2 - A Life Close to Life - Spring
2006
Click on images below to enlarge.
Students camped out
for two nights at a small hobby farm near Newborn, Georgia and also spent some time at nearby Bricton Farm, a large Angus
cattle ranch and breeding facility. During this Experiential Learning Activity, the students gained a greater appreciation
for the agricultural lifestyle by doing various farm chores, planning and planting a garden, and learning about the life on
a cattle ranch. The 7th and 8th graders also spent some time with Chris Wallace, the barn manager at Bricton Farms,
learning about the amazingly complicated and detailed science of cattle breeding. There were many other activities,
including a stargazing experience where students learned to identify constellations and prominent night sky objects.
It was a great trip for all who attended!
ELA #1
- North Georgia Mountains
- Fall 2005
Click
on images below to enlarge.
Students took two days and
nights and camped out a little closer to the stars in the high mountains of North Georgia near Lake Conasauga. During
this "Experiential Learning Activity", students learned basic outdoor skills, used GPS receivers to navigate their
way between hidden treasures in the woods, photographed and analyzed horticultural specimens of native Georgia plants, responded
to the beauty of creation using artistic expression in both written and fine art forms, learned to identify constellations
and prominent night sky objects, and just plain ole had fun!
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