TESSERACT NINTH-GRADERS TO SPEND PART OF SECOND SEMESTER IN ITALY
PARADISE VALLEY, ARIZONA –February 4, 2009– Tesseract School, a non-profit,
independent private school—preschool through ninth grade, with its inaugural 10th-grade class
starting fall 2009—announced today that its ninth-grade students will be spending part of their
second semester in Italy as part of their humanities curriculum.
Tesseract’s high school curriculum includes a significant amount of project-based learning to
help motivate students with material that challenges their abilities and work that is connected to
the real world. While in Italy, the ninth-graders will be engaged in educator-led activities and
projects that involve research, data acquisition and journaling. These activities will unite what
they have been learning in class about the period of 400 BC to 400 AD with what they are
seeing and experiencing firsthand. The project work will be conducted in various locations
including Milan, Pompeii, Orvieto and Rome, where they will spend time at integral sites dating
back to the Roman Empire. Upon their return, students will synthesize what they learned and
present their findings to the Tesseract community, which will represent a significant portion of
their grades for the semester. “This trip is an integral component of the ninth-grade curriculum,”
said Chris LaBonte, Tesseract School’s director of middle and high school. “Our students will
be exposed to foreign language, history, archaeology and geology in very authentic ways. It is
important for students to understand how the information they are learning in class relates to the
real world. It is through hands-on experiences, such as these, that they truly feel that
connection.”
In Rome the ninth-graders will also spend time at a local school with a strong humanities
curriculum. Tesseract’s ninth-grade humanities educator, Jennifer Tyma, has been working with that school’s humanities educator to establish an “e-pen pal" relationship with their students. “By
beginning a dialogue with students in Rome now, the students can develop connections and
curricular understanding that will allow them to make the most of their time together.”
At Tesseract, class trips are an essential part of the curriculum for all grade levels. In the lower
and middle schools, students experience a variety of local field trips, and in middle school, they
also participate in a major curriculum-related trip. At Tesseract, students are prepared to excel
in college and beyond, lead lives of purpose, and become ethical and compassionate citizens
with a global perspective. Tying this philosophy and the school’s curriculum together,
Tesseract’s fifth and sixth-grades alternate trips between the headquarters of Heifer
International and locations in the San Francisco area where they learn about global resources
and sustainable living. This year the students will be traveling to the Golden Gate National
Recreation Area where they will work in teams to understand the ecology of this fragile
ecosystem, and to San Francisco and China town in support of their studies of China.
Tesseract’s seventh-grade students travel to Boston, Philadelphia and Washington D.C., where
they support their American government and history curriculum by visiting key historical
landmarks from 17th century colonial times through the Independence period to the modern day
including Plimoth Plantation, the Salem Witch Museum, Independence Hall, the National
Archives, the Supreme Court and Congress. Tesseract’s eighth-grade students travel to Costa
Rica where they visit local schools and villages, organic farms, a women’s cooperative,
rainforests and the San Geraldo Biological Center to further their studies on sustainability and
climate change. On this trip the eighth-graders also have the opportunity to utilize their Spanishspeaking
skills; at Tesseract, Spanish is part of the core curriculum starting at age 3.
In addition to the classroom preparation for this spring’s trip to Rome, Tesseract’s ninth-graders
are sponsoring a multi-family garage sale on Saturday, February 7 in the parking lot of
Tesseract’s middle and high school campus at 3939 East Shea Boulevard in Phoenix. Items
at the sale will include books, clothes, toys, furniture and household items. Proceeds from the
sale will go to offset costs for the class trip.
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