Middle School Students Travel to Iceland for a Week of Adventure

Last week, nineteen intrepid travelers journeyed to Iceland for an enriching summer trip! Sixteen students from the MacArthur Campus joined trip-leaders Nursery Teacher Angie Blake-Moore, Director of Alumni and Parent Programs Chris Bolger, and Director of Sustainability Sam Mason for the adventure of a lifetime. 

Four students from our rising Grade 7, eight students from our rising Grade 8, and four recent graduates from the Class of 2022 departed from the United States for a week-long trip led by Angie Blake-Moore, Chris Bolger, and Sam Mason, and organized by the tour company Green Edventures in mid-July. The trip started off with a dip at the famous Blue Lagoon, one of the most widely-identified highlights of the trip by our students! Each day consisted of a variety of action-packed activities including horseback riding, kayaking in a lagoon, planting birch trees to offset the trip’s carbon footprint, and hiking on top of the glacier Breiðamerkurjökull. Participants also learned about geothermal energy, how Iceland became one of the most environmentally sustainable countries in the world, and about Icelandic culture and cuisine–including how to bake bread in a hot spring! 

Trip leader Chris Bolger reflects on the trip: “I am so thrilled that we were able to offer this experience to these sixteen remarkable students! We first started work on an Iceland trip in the fall of 2019. The pandemic obviously derailed our plans for the summer of 2020 and me, Angie, and Sam, are delighted that it finally came to fruition. Seeing the joy on our students' faces each day made the trip for each of us! Angie and I particularly enjoyed the opportunity to work with our oldest students and Sam was thrilled to see many of them develop into budding geologists with their love of rocks. Please reach out to me with any questions about international summer trips, which we plan to continue to offer to Middle School students moving forward!”