Students will use their two week intersession period to participate in a multi-disciplinary field trip

that will take them from their suburban community of Riverside into the diverse city of Los Angeles, CA.
Students will ride the Metro into the city daily, learning to navigate public transportation and map their
routes from stop to stop. The trips provide practical connections to curriculum, but more importantly
help students to develop an understanding that the great wide world is surprisingly close by, that people
experience that world in positive and negative ways, that compassion and empathy can make society
better for everyone.
Day one of their experience will begin with a tour of TCL Chinese Theatre, a Hollywood landmark, and an
exploration of the role that Hollywood and the entertainment industries have played and continue to play
in California. Afterwards students will take the Metro downtown to the Homegirl Caf for lunch (no host)
followed by a tour of Homeboy Industries, a program that provides jobs and education as an alternative
to gangs. Students will then serve dinner to the homeless at the Midnight Mission.
Day two is a thematic Science day in the LA Experience. Students will ride the Metro to Exposition Park
and will divide into groups according to interest to visit CA Science Center, Natural History Museum, or
African American Museum.
Day three the students will experience the Arts district, have lunch at the Farmers Market (no host) on
3rd and Fairfax, taking the opportunity to take in the historic buildings (including the historic Gilmore
Adobe) and fabulous 1930s architecture. Afterwards, students will spend the day at the Getty museum.
Day four students will begin the day with a personal tour through St. Elmos Village, a culturally rich,
vibrant artist colony within the city where they will participate in the culture by making their own craft.
They will then move to Little Ethiopia where they will enjoy some Ethiopian food (no host). In the
afternoon, students enrolled in the Biology class will tour the La Brea Tar Pits and others will visit
LACMA.
Day five brings us to the downtown tour day. Students will arrive in Union Station and take a staff led
walking tour. Then students will choose a group to follow based on their interests and class enrollment.
The Fashion track will take a tour of FIDM; the Cultural track will walk around Little Tokyo, Olvera Street,
and Chinatown; the Architecture students will view Disney Concert Hall, Peterson Automotive Museum,
and City Hall. Students will visit the rich cultural melting pot, Grand Central Market for lunch (no host)
and then visit The Last Bookstore as a group.
Synthesis: The most important element of our LA Experience is the synthesis. Each day students will be
asked to journal their days events and share their take-aways with each other. The Riverside Art
Museum will spend Monday of the second week at our school teaching technique to our students.
Students will then brainstorm a project they would like to complete that represents their learning
experience from the prior weeks field trips. Day two of our synthesis week will include peer critique and
project tuning. Days three and four will include project completion and day five will be exhibition and
Presentation of Learning for families and the community.
The LA Experience is a collaboration of teachers from multiple disciplines. Because of this,
students will be served with a fusion of cultural, historical, and scientific content. Throughout the week,
students learn about California, US and World History as they explore museums and historic sites
throughout LA. Visiting the Science center will give them a hands-on opportunity to discover technology
and science concepts only found outside of the classroom. The La Brea Tar Pits not only serves to enrich
content for our Biology students, but will inspire wonder and responsibility for our natural resources
among all of our participants.
While content enrichment is one of our goals, we cannot ignore the largest benefit of our project
cultural enrichment. We want to take our students beyond the curriculum, beyond the cultural day at
school and help them to view the world with a new lensone that doesnt belong to them. Students will
encounter a variety of social and cultural perspectives as part of their LA Experience. Acknowledging
cultural diversity in our classrooms is commonplace, but for our students to actually experience it - see,
touch, hear, taste, and smell - will go a long way to promoting equity in our classrooms and acceptance in
the hearts and minds of our kids.
We thought it paramount to incorporate service in our students experience. We have dedicated a day to
serving others. We want to instill compassion and empathy in our students and this is something that
cannot effectively be accomplished within the four walls of our classrooms. This can only be done with
the sights of former gang members diligently working to change their own lives, the sounds of a homeless
shelter in the afternoon, the smell of cooking dinner for hundreds of men who physically cannot provide
for themselves, and the conversations students will have with those who have made these places their
lifes work and passion.
Some lessons cannot be taught in a classroom. They can only be learned through experience. It is our goal
that this LA Experience provide our students with the kinds of lessons that stick with them beyond school
hours, that help them become better citizens, and wiser adults.