Geared Up To Give Back

Throughout the course of the 2006 – 2007 school year the students in Gear Up’s ‘Geared Up To Give Back’ Edge Magazine Hurricane Katrina Project participated in a learning workshop series. In the series students learned about Hurricane Katrina first hand from people involved in the storm, it’s aftermath and related issues. The learning workshop series also helped prepare the contingent of student who would represent the project on a service learning trip to New Orleans.

In May of 2007 eighteen students from Asa Mercer Middle School traveled to New Orleans representing Gear Up’s ‘Geared Up To Give Back’ Edge Magazine Hurricane Katrina Project. Their mission was to learn more about Hurricane Katrina while helping in the effort to restore the city. They accomplished their mission and in the process learned more than they expected about themselves.

Each day the students began and ended their volunteer and expeditionary learning activities with socratic seminars. The seminars gave the students an opportunity to process their experiences and explore new ideas. The seminars also allowed the students to hone their public speaking skills. By the end of the trip the students embraced the semimars, journaling and sharing of ideas as a valued part of the overall experience.

These videos offer a glimpse of what the students experienced throughout the course of the project.

How To View The files
The videos provided here are encoded in quicktime format most computers have the quicktime player installed. However if you do not the application is provided on this disc in both windows and Macintosh formats.

The presskit, edge magazine and slideshows are provided in pdf formats. Like quicktime most computers have the adobe acrobat reader installed. However it has been provided here as well in both Windows and Macintosh formats.

To find the appropriate application files follow the 'Application Support' link.

Geared Up To Give Back
Hurricane Katrina Research Project
Video Samples and Digital Press Kit