About
About Explorations Academy
Welcome to Explorations Academy
An Explorations Academy education is grounded in delivering a meaningful, relevant curriculum. Our experiential approach draws students into the real world with field excursions that complement classroom learning. Our goal is to emphasize academics in a context that ensures that those studies are meaningful, and which helps young people with the profound undertaking of becoming adults.
Contemporary Curriculum
An Explorations Academy education is grounded in delivering a meaningful, relevant curriculum. Our experiential approach draws students into the real world with learning opportunities that complement classroom learning.
At Explorations we deliver a dynamic education focusing on the personal, social and global learning of the student. We believe that the core of the student experience is not about accumulating information, but an intentional mix of intellectual complexity, outdoor education, global awareness, and self-directed learning in a small school setting. Students are treated as intellectuals as they explore ethics, philosophy and contemporary issues.
We hold students to high academic standards emphasizing self-directed learning and independent study skills. They work closely together on projects and on a regular basis must organize materials, articulate their ideas, and respond to challenging questions.
Faculty design a customized curriculum each term that weaves together traditional academics, current events and field study. Curriculum is college-preparatory and integrated in a thematic format called a cluster. Instead of attending classes with no relation to each other, student learning benefits with common themes that unite cluster classes through a more in-depth, holistic view of the subjects.
Interdisciplinary Coursework
Explorations Academy uses experiential education strategies, combining active experience with guided reflection and critical analysis of relevant topics. These topics are organized in to interdisciplinary themes called clusters.
Students engage in a process of discovery. They draw out lessons and insights by grappling with issues in their “real world” context, making academics both richer in substance and more relevant to students’ lives. Our most popular clusters include: Energy, Shelter, Meaning and Purpose, Media, Gender, Revolutions, and Food. Our integrated topics include English, Science, Social Studies, World Language, Art, Technology, Math, Physical Education, as well as Wilderness Education and Cohort Classes.
By linking experiential learning and multidisciplinary study with current global issues, we encourage students to develop clear, informed viewpoints, and to gain strengths in citizenship and stewardship. undertake self-development, to work cooperatively with others of different perspectives and backgrounds, and to demonstrate ecological and cultural literacy in their actions. These strengths are critical to our progress toward a just, peaceful, and sustainable world.
Assessment
Creating meaningful assessment strategies is a priority at Explorations Academy. Evaluation methods include individualized assessments, student conferences, self-reflection, and projects that demonstrate how their skills and knowledge can be applied in the world.
Teachers in all classes contribute narrative evaluations for student report cards, which are emphasized over the letter grade. Narrative evaluations allow students, their families, and future schools to better understand each learner’s strengths, goals, interests, challenges, and achievements in different subject areas. Every report card includes a general comment prepared by the student’s advisor, which discusses the student’s social and emotional growth throughout the term.
Our course codes and letter grades are transferable to other learning institutions, and align with all WA State High School graduation requirements.
Hours
The evidence is clear: adolescents are better learners when they are not sleep-deprived zombies stumbling through the day. Consequently, we have chosen to have our program start later in the day than typical schools. High School and Middle School students start school at 9am and end at 4pm. Building opens at 8:30am.
