Final Session Preview 2223.7

The Final Session of the Year is here &
​It's time to 'grow curiosity'

We are excited to announce our Quests and other focus areas for each of our four mixed-age studios for the final session of the year! Our final session of the year is reserved for 'growing curiosity' and exploring passion projects. You can read more about our learning design here.

Sparks

QUEST: Growing Curiosity
Our quest this session has a unique twist…as the heroes were the ones to select our topics!

Rather than focusing on one theme each week, we will do a speedy deep dive into 3 different concepts throughout the session, allowing heroes to experience a wide array of hands-on activities in a short amount of time!

Week #1: INSECTS
Week #2: THE HUMAN BODY
Week #3: DINOSAURS/FOSSILS

HEROES OF THE WEEK: Frida Kahlo & Dolly Parton

CULTURE:
Our travels will take us to Australia this session as we explore the cultures and traditions of:

• SIDNEY
• TASMANIA
• VICTORIA

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DISCOVERY

QUEST: Growing Curiosity
In the Discovery Studio, heroes will be challenged to embrace their curiosity and dive deeply into a variety of topics, challenging themselves to be open-minded each day to the possibility of discovering a new passion, gift, or talent! Heroes will come in with a fresh, clean slate. What sparks THEIR interest? What have THEY been eager to learn more about?

What we brainstorm as a studio will drive what the studio learns and will shape the rest of this session's Quest.

They also have the opportunity to pursue their own mini-passion projects throughout the session.

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oDYSSEY

​QUEST: Growing Curiosity
Heroes have the opportunity to plan and lead a day of Quest of their choosing! In groups, heroes will choose a topic that they are interested in and plan out the launch, activity, and debrief for their topic!

Then for the second half of the session, each group will lead a day of Quest and share their passion with their fellow travelers. Some ideas that were brainstormed on the last day of Session 6 were video editing, music, survival, art, film-making, freestyle writing, and engineering! I can’t wait to see what activities the heroes plan!

WRITER'S WORKSHOP - Plan your Own Mini-Quest
Keeping with the theme of exploring your passion, Writer’s Workshop this session will allow heroes to design their dream Quest. For Quest this session heroes will be planning a delivering one day of a Quest, but what if they had the opportunity to design a 2-week mini Quest?! During Writer’s Workshop heroes will have time to research, design, and write out their vision of their Dream Quest and bring it to life! And the added bonus, the hero or group that creates a true Acton Mini-Quest, with planned launches, challenges, and debriefs, will have the opportunity next year to bring their Mini-Quest to life for half of a session!

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aDVENTURE

One of the goals of the Adventure Studio is to provide meaningful opportunities and tools for uncovering and pursuing individual passions While this is baked into the learning design throughout the year, this is an area of special focus during session 7. The key question throughout this session is, “What am I passionate about & how can I channel or build that passion into something that will make a difference in my Hero’s Journey?”

QUEST: Independent Passion Projects
Heroes will have the freedom (and responsibility) to identify an area of learning they are passionate about. They will then be equipped with a recipe for creating and executing an independent 4 week plan of learning. As part of that recipe, they will explore and identify resources they’ll need to build their knowledge base and then channel that into practicing a meaningful skill, creating something new and unique, answering a difficult question, and/or serving others.

COMMUNICATION - Heroes have two choices for Communication this Session:

1. The first option is, similar to quest, to identify, plan, and execute an independent learning project that is focused on communication. This could be so many different things - just a few possibilities include:  drafting a graphic novel, writing a screenplay, developing a business plan, building a website, writing “letters to the editor,” or putting together a poetry anthology. Whatever path a hero chooses - they’ll follow a tried and true recipe for success including:
   +Pre-Write/Research/Explore
   +First Draft
   +Revise + Critique (& Repeat)
   +Edit
   +Publish
   
   
2. The second option for heroes is to go back and repeat a Communication badge from some time in the past two years. If they choose this route, the focus will be on developing excellence - identifying and executing on specific ways this second attempt will be better than the last time. Earning the badge will be dependent upon their ability to prove this growth.

CIVILIZATION
Earning a civilization badge will be optional this session. Heroes will have the choice of reading & reflecting on a definitive biography (and using this to plan and lead a discussion with the whole studio) or exploring a particular person, period, or topic within history/government/economics and attempting to answer one or more big, important questions in that same theme.
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Heroes will also have the option of forgoing the civilization badge this session in order to focus more time on Quest, Communication, or self paced core skill or learning to be badges!