Refresh Mountain: MS Take to High Ropes!

At the start of the fall term sixth grade students headed en mass to Refreshing Mountain a year round retreat and adventure center in Lancaster County. Intended as a way to give the 6th grade students and advisors a chance to get to know each other through a variety of team building, low ropes, and high ropes activities.  Refreshing Mountain adheres to the philosophy of "Challenge by Choice," encouraging students to take risks in a safe environment while never forcing them to participate.  GA students and teachers participated in the team building activities and most participated in some or all of the high ropes "Challenge Adventure" course that included five zip lines.  Students also enjoyed the "Giant Swing," three levels of climbing walls, and archery.

Greens Harvest in the Pre-K

Earlier this fall, at the peak of growing season, lower school science teacher Lisa
Martin, along with the pre-K students and teachers harvested spinach they planted in the Sally Wolf Memorial Garden adjacent to their classrooms. After picking and cleaning the spinach, they sat down to a feast of raw leaves and ranch dressing! The garden projects in the lower school are integrated programs that include science and thematic classroom studies.

Upper School Outdoor Club Visits Weiser State Forest

In mid October the US Outdoor CLub camped and hiked in in Weiser State Forest visiting Swatara State Park and Boxcar Rocks. Senior club leader Jack Beltz reports, "the biggest highlights of the camping trip were exploring ruins of an old river lock and climbing on and eating lunch at these amazing rock formations called box car rocks on Saturday." The group consisting of GA faculty and students also found time to star gaze, observing several shooting stars and a meteor and enjoy a good old fashioned camp fire complete with S'mores, ghost story's and campfire music galore. 

Middle School Day of Service in the Preserve

In mid October, middle school students and faculty headed to The Preserve to help with the cattail management and restoration project as part of the Middle School day of Service. The Swale Project has been ongoing since early September in an effort to slow down water movement through The Preserve engineering a habitat that increases infiltration of rainwater and bio-diversity of the Preserve.