AHAS Summer Programs
AHAS Summer Programs are four and five weeks long, include daily summer educational support, and are offered to grades K-12; Free Lunch is provided by SHARE.
Some of the AHAS Summer Program curriculum includes:
1. Bridge Building
Student groups design and construct a variety of bridges, from small models to large constructions. The bridge designs take into account engineering/construction, aesthetics, and environmental impact. In preparation for their project, students learn about various types of bridges and examine famous bridges from around the world. They investigate properties of triangles and rectangles and other concepts in geometry and physics, and they conduct several design and strength tests.
2. Theatre Exploration
Students author, create, design environments for, direct, and produce classroom dramatizations. Drawing from personal lives, literature and/or imagination, students collaboratively design, direct, and perform scripted dramatizations. Connections are made with various artforms. Students learn techniques for working collaboratively. In addition, students are invited to participate in a theatre production group that performs and publishes their own scripts.
3. Music Exploration
Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, perform, and appreciate music. Students begin to understand and articulate relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts. By the end of music exploration, students are able to perform in an ensemble performance, demonstrating respect for other performers and the collaboration while making
music.
4. Video Storytelling
Students develop basic skills and techniques including use of camera angles, scale and movement, nonlinear digital editing skills, storyboarding, and correct use and care of cameras, tripods, and audio equipment. Students work in collaborative groups that author, film, edit, and produce public service announcements about AHAS, environmental issues, homelessness, health and fitness, and other social
issues. Sometimes, they make films just for fun!
5. Health and Physical Education
Students participate in formal physical education and movement education that includes 150 minutes weekly physical activity (as recommended for elementary age children by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education); 150 minutes weekly self-respect curriculum; 180 minutes weekly, integrated curriculum that links physical movement to learning tasks (e.g., grades 2-5 curriculum includes
writer’s and drama workshops, a community-based mural project and computer-generated, film story public service announcements on wellness and physical activity), including four hours nutrition instruction that emphasizes healthy food choices.
6. AHAS Daily News
Students present daily news reports during “Lunch Theatre” during the summer program. During the week, they write and edit stories, take photographs, conduct interviews, and otherwise collect information about the week’s events at AHAS for publication in a Friday newsletter that is sent home with students, parents, and teachers.
7. Visual Art Exploration
Students learn about the concepts of artistic composition. They experience a variety of media. Students express their feelings and ideas using the basic elements of art. Students have multiple opportunities to exhibit their artworks in galleries and public venues. Each year, students paint murals. Visual arts, poetry, and movement are often integrated.
8. Environmental Education
Phase One
Students attend a four-week program that includes instruction in orienteering, nature photography and filming; skills of scientific inquiry, nature journals; closed and open system instruction, use of equipment such as hand-lenses and dissection scopes, and understanding plant, fish, and animal habitats, nature
walks, and a specific curriculum of respect for the natural world.
Phase Two
Students attend an outdoor education program at Columbia Springs Environmental Education Center. During the immersion week of hiking, fishing, and habitat maintenance, students engage in forest and fish restorations and practices of scientific inquiry, including nature journals and video and still digital photography. Workshops on nature photography are included in this curriculum.
Phase Three
Six day-long, school-year events at Columbia Springs Environmental Education Center include nature walks and instructions to use students’ journals and photography to create public service announcements, educational film-shorts, and power point presentations about environmental preservation and regionally significant natural, cultural, historical, and recreational resources in Washington State.
9. PreK-Grade 1 Instructional Program
Children going into K and those who have recently completed first grade are grouped in one class. In addition to skills associated with socialization to school (e.g., standing in line, asking for assistance, etc) and early language, literacy, and motor skills instruction, students complete lessons about: Bridges; Theater, Music, and Visual Arts explorations; Health and Physical Education; and
Environmental Science.
10. Interns Instructional Program (grades 6-8)
Students grades 6-8 are invited to participate as interns with AHAS. Our purpose is to heighten students’ awareness of civic pride and community involvement while building their leadership skills. Emphasis is on environmental stewardship. They engage in a variety of activities in many settings. Other courses are offered in quilt design and quilt making; jewelry design; geography and global cultures; passports around the world; kite making; outdoor cooking; reading groups; archeology digs; physics-building simple