New York, U.S. – Silk Road Connect Camp
August 31-September 1, 2009
Silk Road Connect—a multi-year, multidisciplinary educational program for middle school students—launched with a workshop for educators taking part in the 2009-2010 pilot program in New York City.
Having spent the spring and summer planning with educational experts and preparing materials, the Silk Road Project staff was eager to meet the teams of sixth-grade teachers from five public schools chosen for the pilot program: - East Bronx Academy for the Future
- Edward Bleeker Jr. High School 185Q (Queens)
- Frederick Douglass Academy III (Bronx)
- PS 161M (Manhattan)
- The Young Women’s Leadership School of Brooklyn
Silk Road Connect inspires passion-driven learning by empowering students and teachers to seek connections across all areas of study and to follow their interests from the familiar to the foreign. The program integrates teaching resources, school assemblies, classroom activities and visits by performing artists, community festivals and cultural explorations.
In its pilot year, Silk Road Connect focuses on the dye indigo—a substance that colors every student’s blue jeans—as a way to connect social studies, ancient history, language arts, mathematics, science, and the visual and performing arts.
In New York City, the Silk Road Project is partnering with the Department of Education and several arts and cultural organizations to enrich sixth-grade students’ experiences. The following Silk Road Connect partners presented at the workshop: - Will Crow from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Rebecca Charnow from Manhattan School of Music
- Stefanie Fins from the American Museum of Natural History
- A team from National Geographic’s Genographic Project
- Anna Commitante from the Department of Education
- Shane Shanahan and Kojiro Umezaki from the Silk Road Ensemble
- Dyer Linda LaBelle from the Yarn Tree
- Indigo expert Jenny Balfour-Paul
Over two days, Silk Road Connect Camp began the planning process with participating schools. The teachers also had fun! In addition to receiving resources, meeting partners, asking questions, and discussing classroom implementation, teachers played in a drum circle, dyed with indigo, and submitted DNA samples to the Genographic Project for analysis of ancient human migratory patterns—all activities that Silk Road Connect will introduce to their students. Together, partners and educators are developing Silk Road Connect throughout the pilot year. In subsequent years, the program may open to a wider group of participants in New York City and expand to other cities, with the goal of inspiring similar educational approaches.
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