Announcing the Inaugural Voyage of the ‘Eighth Grade Odyssey’

   

Sicily was colonized by the Greeks in the Eighth century BCE and invaded by the Eighth Grade on June 7.  15 students in Royster Middle School participated in a study abroad adventure in Sicily and southern Italy as part of Norfolk Academy’s Global Classroom initiative.

The objective was to give students an up close and personal view of the ancient world. 

By the end of Eighth Grade, they have studied Greek mythology, Greek drama, ancient history, the laws of physics as described by Greek philosophers and scientists, the mathematics of Pythagoras and Euclid, the literature of Homer, and, of course, they have studied the Latin language of the Romans-the direct heirs and innovators of the Greek genius.

So they left the books in the classroom and made antiquity their playground as they climbed on the ruins of ancient temples, sat in the theater where Plato sat, leapt from the altar of the largest Doric temple ever constructed, re-enacted the Roman invasion of Greek Syracuse, confronted philosophers, poets, and playwrights on their own ground, swam in three different seas, hiked in the craters of Mt Etna, and ate their weight in gelato. 

Their guides on the journey were a Latin teacher (Heidi Pollio), a science teacher (Woody Poole), a professor of Classics (Dr. David Pollio), their leadership skills, their imagination, and their own sense of adventure.

They brought iPads and used them as resources for research, for challenges at sites, for documenting their journey, and will ultimately use them for creating a work of art describing what they have learned.

It was a ten day Odyssey of mind, body, and spirit, and an adventure of a lifetime.

Is this year’s rising Eighth Grade up for an adventure?  We’ll have to wait and see.  Stay tuned for next year’s installment, ‘Odyssey 2016,’ accepting applications this fall from the class of 2020.