On October 6, Catskill Middle School explored the abundant cultural and natural resources our area has to offer with its annual A Greater Sense of Place. Like the name eludes to, this school-wide event seeks to get students out into their community to see what it has to offer and experience something they haven’t before. Students could choose an adventure that interested them from a list of activities that brought them up into the mountains, down to the river, or to more than a dozen other places in between!
Students explored our area’s deep connections to the arts, both past and present, with visits to museums like the Thomas Cole House, Frederic Church’s Olana, and the OMI International Arts Center. For those interested in the great outdoors, there was hiking and mountain biking in the North Lake area, canoeing and kayaking on the Catskill Creek, outdoor survival skills class, or a trip to the Cohotate Preserve. Others explored a farm-to-table experience at Katchkie Farm, where they harvested organic vegetables and prepared a fresh meal to eat together. Downtown, students made pizzas (and of course ate them) at Pomodoro’s Pizzeria and toured the Catskill firehouse next door. Students could also try out Ice skating, quilting, dance, geocaching, fall crafts, flag football, and hairstyling (with an emphasis on pink for breast cancer awareness).
A Greater Sense of Place has been a school-wide event at CMS for more than a decade, but its roots go back much further, dating to related community-based learning projects that classes began undertaking in the 1980’s.
