1. Athenian Wilderness Experience (abridged)
Experience Leaders: Jason Ham, Phoebe Dameron, Geoffrey Journeay-Kaler

How do shared goals, “real world” tasks, challenging one’s individual comfort zone, and expressing vulnerability within a supportive group help build educational communities? What is the role of failure and risk in education and personal growth? These concepts and others are explored by each Athenian student during their Athenian Wilderness Experience (AWE), a 26-day remote backpacking expedition completed in the 11th grade and required for graduation. During this abridged version, A.W.E. program directors and student teaching assistants will guide you through key elements of this signature program.

We will navigate our way together literally and figuratively, traveling through various ecological zones in Mount Diablo State Park. We will hike directly from the Athenian campus and explore elements of community-building through outdoor education. Participants will engage in activities that highlight communication and conflict resolution, connection with self, others and the natural world, and the building of shared experience. 


Tags: Outdoor Education; Discussion Practices; Student Leadership
Challenge Level: Challenging

2. California Water: Equitable Management of a Scarce Resource
Experience Leaders: Andrew David, Marty Rubio

California faces the challenge of allocating scarce water to many different stakeholders, including residents, farmers, and industry. How can it do this fairly while protecting the diverse ecosystems in the state? Who gets a seat at the table in this process? This workshop explores the history, geology, environment, politics, and economics of water in the Golden State. Over the day, we will examine the multitude of demands placed on our water supply in the Bay Area.  We will travel to a local reservoir to see how the state employs modern engineering to guarantee a stable water supply. We will lunch in a local redwood grove and consider how environmental policy aimed to restore or preserve natural settings. Finally, we will grapple with the hard political decisions faced by a system of competing interests through a simulated legislative process.

While this workshop will focus on water in California, participants will reflect on how this case could apply to other situations of scarcity in their own communities as we work to educate students to participate in a democratic society. (This workshop is a taste of an 11-day California Water intensive course offered at the Athenian School during March Term.)

Tags: Global Studies / Citizenship; Social Justice; Discussion Practices; History; Science; Politics & Economics; Environmental Sustainability
Challenge Level: Moderate

3. Dig to Learn: Planting Roots at Athenian 
Experience Leaders: Erika Argueta-Connor, Matt Zahner

Explore the environmental stewardship initiatives on the Athenian campus. Visit the orchard, middle school garden, upper school permaculture garden, and hydroponic towers. Get your hands dirty working in the orchard (weeding, soil amendment, etc., and planting cover crops).

End the day tasting olive oil from olive trees on the Athenian campus. Return to your school inspired with ideas for your own campus and with an appreciation for the potential of student engagement and community connection through the process of utilizing campus spaces. 

Tags: Community Engagement, Service Learning, Environmental Sustainability, Student Leadership
Challenge Level: Moderate

4. Experiential Math: Cryptography, Probability, and Economics
Experience Leaders: Ted Webb, Todd Miller

See first-hand how math education can be academically focused while also being truly experiential. Learn to address social justice issues throughout history through math. While workshop lessons are based in math and economics, applications to other disciplines are an easy extension.

Gain an understanding of how you can incorporate these types of activities in your own schools. Workshop activities will include a ransomware and cryptography lesson to develop an understanding of cryptography and use that to send encrypted messages to their target audience; and a game design lesson to discover an understanding of probability and strategy by playing and analyzing games, and then using this experience to design an original game.

Tags: Math; History
Challenge Level: Easy

5. Exploring Creative Collaboration: Words That Move Me

Experience Leader: laura e. ellis

Experience the creative journey that students take exploring and embodying collaborative art-making.  With a focus on text as source material, embodiment activities, and a class structure that encourages engaging intersections of observation, conversation, reflection, and creative collaboration, this workshop is informed by the community engagement work of two award-winning Bay Area artists/educators:  laura e. ellis and Sean Dorsey.

Be guided through both sequential and iterative approaches to creative processes that center student knowing, imagination, and self-expression. This workshop will be held in a gorgeous studio space on the Athenian campus. It calls on participants to be open to creative play and to thoughtful and performative sharing, while exploring the core themes of inclusivity, identity, cultural relevance, and the empowerment of art making. Accessible movement activities will be included. Dance Experience is not required.  

Tags: Community Engagement; Social Justice; Discussion Practices; Design Thinking; Collaborative Art Making; Creative Expression
Challenge Level: Easy

7. Island Day, an Athenian Focus Day
Experience Leaders: Sven Miller, Jaci Kildare

On Island Day, ISEEN participants will collaborate to create the foundations of their own imagined society. Develop artifacts designated as sacred or as having exchange value. Discuss and decide about the ranking of societal values. Collaborate to construct origin myths for your society. Create customs and rituals that convey meaning and societal identity.

Negotiate and barter goods. Display artifacts and share rituals that convey cultural meaning and identity. Reflecting on the activity, ISEEN participants will take back tools for encouraging student connection between concrete understanding and abstract concepts, as well as some practical design insights for structures that facilitate such links. This workshop is based on an Athenian middle school Focus Day that is an immersive experience, coalescing lessons and insights from multiple disciplines. 

Tags: Global Studies / Citizenship; History
Challenge Level: Moderate

8. Legacy of the Black Panther Party
Experience Leaders: Victoria Akinsanya, Mark Friedman

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP) was founded in Oakland in 1966. Exploring the legacy of the BPP, participants in this workshop will not just be learning history. We will move into the current conditions by using the BPP’s ten point program as a framework to examine what’s been accomplished and what is still needed as we engage with various touchpoints of the BPP legacy. This includes visiting the Women of the Black Panther Party Mural and Museum in West Oakland, talking with the museum’s founder Jill Chrstina Vest, and visiting the nearby statue of Huey Newton by local artist Dana King.

We will also meet Kharriyah Shabazz, the keynote speaker on Tuesday, and some of her staff to explore the legacy of the BPP in Oakland today. Participants will reflect on how we moved through discussions about race, class, gender, and power to facilitate and assist students and educators themselves in talking about and responding to these elements of our socio-political fabric. With the activities of the day being based on some of the ways Athenian does this with our students, you’ll  have a chance to imagine what a grounded, place-based, and action-based examination of race, class, gender, and power looks like in your community.

Tags: Social Justice; Discussion Practices; History
Challenge Level: Easy

9. Mission Murals: Art as Social Activism 
Experience Leader: Stephen Marotti 

Travel to the Mission District of San Francisco via public transportation to explore the rich community history of muralism and some of the hundreds of murals in this neighborhood. Based on our Athenian Middle School Focus Day for 8th graders, we will examine ways to scale such trips to your particular needs. We will visit murals on themes ranging from gentrification, Latino/ community pride, civil wars in Central America, women’s rights, and immigration. Engage in participant-led small group discussions about the murals.

Hear from a local artist/ muralist about their process for making murals, and the current concerns of an ever-changing neighborhood.  

Tags: Community Engagement; Social Justice; Discussion Practices; History; Student Leadership 
Challenge Level: Easy-Moderate

10. Newtonian Olympics: Catapulting Physical Science Curriculum 
Experience Leader: Erin Brindley

Dive into the physical sciences in the Carter Innovation Studio, which houses Athenian’s makerspace. Get hands-on in the wood shop and learn how to use some of the tools. Create a catapult while exploring Newton’s Laws of motion and energy–and decorate it using wood-burning tools. Through your reflections during the activity and discussion of cross-curricular applications, the work will allow you to reimagine the possibilities of science labs.

11. Power of Your Plate: Food Justice in the Bay Area
Experience Leaders: Lea Hartog, Megan Leich

Eating is a universal experience; however, each person’s access to food is not. Learn about the history of grocery store redlining and how it has impacted what people can eat in urban communities. Read and discuss history to understand how West Oakland has experienced food apartheid, as well as the activism that has arisen in order to help residents access fresh, healthy foods. Conduct a food inventory, walking through one neighborhood of West Oakland to get a first-hand appreciation for this community and its resilience.

After structured reflection, enjoy a lunch catered by the Vegan Mob Food Truck, a local, BIPOC-owned business. Hear a presentation from City Slicker Farms, learning about their mission to supply West Oakland residents with healthy produce, and do approximately one hour of work on the farm, such as weeding or maintaining plant beds.  We’ll conclude with a final reflection designed to synthesize what participants have learned and also consider how this experience could translate to their own schools and communities.

Tags: Community Engagement; Service Learning; Environmental Sustainability; Social Justice; Discussion Practices; History
Challenge Level: Easy - Moderate

12.Reinserting Ethics into Innovation
Experience Leaders: Cassie Kise, Bobby Bardenhagen

The goal of this workshop is to reprioritize the use of maker space and technology resources to support human and community-centered initiatives as the leading design factor. In addition to challenging this norm, this workshop will provide folks with the language to help shift their own institutional narratives about technology and its purpose. Participants will challenge  personal and shared definitions of innovation, and explore how to integrate DEI and sustainability initiatives into design practices. Participants will travel on Bay Area public transit (BART).

While riding BART, participants will listen to a podcast discussing the importance of including non-technologist voices and holding designers accountable to personal responsibility when designing new technologies. We will visit UC Berkeley’s Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation with Athenian alumni to understand how a leading university frames design and innovation with their students. Back at Athenian, participants will be given a surprise hands-on design challenge. With the support of Athenian’s Innovation Studio interns, we will move through AI or physical prototyping generations of possible ways to innovate on the proposed challenge. Throughout the workshop, there will be opportunities for participants to reflect on their conception of innovation and how they might bring insights from this workshop back to their school. 

Tags: Community Engagement; Service Learning; Sustainability; Social Justice; Design Thinking / Maker Spaces; Student Internships; Other: Innovation, Technology, Human-Centered Design
Challenge Level: Moderate

13. Bridges and Belonging
Experience Leaders: Jackie Soohoo; Odalis De La O Cortes

The Athenian School runs three summer programs for historically marginalized youth: Black Indigenous and/or People of Color (BIPOC) Camp, Queer Leaders in Training (QLIT), and Connect (for new Athenian students from historically underrepresented or marginalized backgrounds). At this workshop intended as an affinity space for BIPOC and queer ISEEN participants, you’ll get a window into the creation, development and programming for these affinity programs. Prepare to be present in community with each other, share about our different identities, and get vulnerable (within our own comfort levels)! We will experience Athenian’s keystone activities in action such as: Diversity Tree, Phoenix Fire, and “The Most Important Question of our Time.” We’ll reflect and share tips on how to lead these activities and conversations with young people.

Wondering what might this look like in your school? We’ll also explore how to backwards design and curate activities around Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Social Justice, and community based on your program’s vision and values. Athenian students are participants and/or staff in these programs and will be student facilitators of this workshop to share their experiences and insights.

Tags: Social Justice, Discussion Practices
Challenge Level: Easy