From the October 6, 2005 issue of The Cape Codder

Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School News - Seminar Shopping

By The Cape Codder

Brewster - Students at Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School have launched the new year, as they always do, shopping for seminars. The seminar program at the school is a unique aspect of the curriculum that offers students and teachers time to share their passions. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, for an hour and a half each afternoon, the school shifts gears, grades mingle, textbooks are laid aside.

Among this year's seminars is a project related to the relief effort for people affected by Hurricane Katrina last month. In addition to studying the environmental influences that shaped the Gulf Coast, 14 students will lead hands-on activities to raise funds for specific needs. Through developing a relationship with students at the Lake Area Middle School in New Orleans, students in the seminar will try to identify specific needs with which they can help. The students hope to work with Habitat for Humanity as well, building a "Home in a Box." Last weekend Allie Graham, other teachers and parents, took a group of Gulf children who are being housed at Otis Air National Guard Base in Bourne to see Blue Man Group in Boston. It was awesome, with the blue men and Boston folks making the kids from Louisiana feel most welcome, showing off our Cape Cod and Boston hospitality.

Other seminars include a new school newspaper, a beach care commitment and a yearbook. The Brick Project, which was launched last year at the school, will continue. The project connects students at the school with other middle-schoolers around the globe. The school was invited to be one of the founding "bricks." Students from schools in Lithuania, Africa and India were the other corners of the project. This year, new schools are being added, and will include students in South America and China.

The seminar Cafe Philo gives those students of a more philosophical bent time to ponder universal questions, and another seminar, Romeo and Juliet, will take Lighthouse Charter School students deep into the lives of those famous star-crossed lovers. Bird migration, and rowing (The Atlantic Challenge) are just some of the other classes students are taking.