A Week in Rome, Italy
In February 2020, a small group of 6th-8th graders and chaperones were exposed to bountiful aspects of Rome including history, cuisine, art, and culture! With the amazing assistance of Italy’s Program Coordinator, Rachel Zitin, the group uncovered a richer understanding of life in Rome, as it was in ancient times and present day!
Author: Amanda Lowrey
In February 2019, a group of 6th-8th graders and chaperones were exposed to bountiful aspects of Rome including history, cuisine, art, and culture! With the amazing assistance of Italy’s Program Coordinator, Rachel Zitin, the group uncovered a richer understanding of life in Rome, as it was in ancient times and present day!
For travelers who love history, architecture, art, churches, fountains, piazzas, ancient buildings, and tasty cuisine, Rome is not a destination to miss! There are takeaways that everyone benefits from that allow students to receive hands-on experience in a culture different from their own. At the same time, teachers explore aspects of a city’s history with a dynamic that makes classroom material come alive through the culture.
Within a week in Rome, students got to know the city quite well and appreciated the top attractions while exploring the less popular ones!
Read on to find out what the group got to see and participate in during their week in Italy!
A Roman Welcome
Following a long day of travel from the U.S. to Italy, the group enjoyed a relaxing dinner of authentic Roman pizza to start off their week! The Esquilino neighborhood acted as their home away from home and playground for exploration, which also houses important basilicas, such as Santa Maria Maggiore and San Giovanni in Laterano.
Closely located to their accommodations was the Colosseum and Roman Forum! Considered one of the world’s most popular attractions, the magnificent Colosseum was once a grand spectacle for gladiators, and the group got the chance to tour the arena from 80 AD! Ancient Rome’s city center was also explored within the Roman Forum and students got to take in the sights of the beautiful ruins.
Let’s not forget about Italian cuisine! The group partook in a flavorsome dinner at a local favorite nearby their neighborhood, which included hearty pasta, vegetables, and a delicious tiramisu dessert to wrap up their third day!
Pompeii
Additionally, students and chaperones thoroughly appreciated the day excursion to Pompeii, a famous Roman city located 150 miles south of Rome, which was buried under volcanic ash in AD 79 as a result of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius!
The group had the chance to explore the UNESCO World Heritage Site with Rachel and an archaeological guide. Though the city is known to be “frozen in time,” the ruins gave students a unique insider’s look into ancient Roman life.
Speaking of Mt. Vesuvius, did you know that it is still considered an active volcano today? The group had the opportunity to climb to the top, where they were able to see the Bay of Naples, Herculaneum and the Mediterranean Sea!
Art & Gastronomy
Moreover, the group had the chance to become artists for the day! Since Italy is greatly known for its abundant art and culture, students walked around iconic sites and attended a watercolor workshop with an artist, where they created their own masterpiece to take home!
Besides marvelous art and architecture, Italian gastronomy is hard to beat! The group prepared a three-course meal with a local chef, with a menu including Rome’s most famous dishes! Students and chaperones had a wonderful time and loved the experience in the kitchen!
Correspondingly, Testaccio Neighborhood used to be the central port for food supply in ancient Roman days, and now accommodates some of Rome’s greatest eateries! In particular, Testaccio’s food market offered local delicacies that the group savored together!
The Historic Center
Furthermore, Rome’s historic center is rich in piazzas, cobblestone streets, and architecture, but also the headquarters of massive attractions, including the Spanish Steps and the Pantheon! This 135 step staircase was completed in 1725! The Pantheon is a two-thousand year old temple, which is now a church, and features the largest unreinforced concrete dome.
In a similar manner, the Trevi Fountain is arguably the most famous fountain in the world! Tradition states that visitors toss a coin into the water to ensure a return to the Eternal City! Our students got to try this tradition out for themselves!
Vatican City
Situated west of the Tiber River, the Vatican City is the world’s smallest independent national site and the epicenter for the Catholic Church. Covering a little over 100 acres, this city possesses stunning buildings, gardens, museums, churches, and maintains its own banking and media stations.
The group ventured inside the Vatican Museums, which feature the world’s greatest art collections, including frescoed rooms by Raphael and Egyptian mummies! The Sistine Chapel was another fascinating and momentous building the group toured, which houses Michelangelo’s frescoes and The Last Judgement.
Located within Vatican City, St. Peter’s Basilica is one of the world’s holiest catholic shrines and enormous central church in Rome. In the fourth century, the church was built on the site of St. Peter’s grave, but the original building was replaced with the current Basilica millions of visitors tour each year.
The group toured the aforementioned areas and learned about the plans and purpose of the city. In the evening, the group enjoyed a family-style Italian meal, including appetizers, pasta dishes and main courses!
In closing, the group had an amazing time and took away lessons and knowledge that they’ll cherish for life! After having so many immersive experiences within one week, it’s no wonder that the group departed Italy with suitcases full of educational and captivating moments! This type of program in Italy grants students, teachers, and chaperones, the ability to pursue an interest in international education, improve their second language skills, and see another part of the world.
It’s important that programs feel connected and understood. Reflecting on experiences provides students with the opportunity to express their own thoughts and build trust in the team. For this reason, EdOdyssey directs groups to participate in group reflections each day, in order to unpack observations and takeaways together.
For more insight into the importance of these meaningful moments together, check out our past blog, “Three Main Reasons Why We Do Group Reflections”!
How International Trips Innovate Careers in Education
The digital transformation in today’s education continues to encourage teachers to innovate their classrooms, and those virtual skills will need to eventually be mastered in person. As teachers build more online experiences for students, they also have an opportunity to take the right steps in a new direction will prepare students for the future of a globalizing world.
The digital transformation in today’s education continues to push teachers to innovate their classrooms, and those virtual skills will need to eventually be mastered in person. As teachers build more online experiences for students, they also have an opportunity to take the right steps in a new direction that will prepare students to go abroad and embrace the future of a globalizing world.
The students and teachers who prepare and prep for those experiences now will put themselves in a better place to innovate their respective futures. Read on to learn how teachers at the middle school and high school level now have an opportunity to use virtual tools to build skills, enhance their classroom and create an immersive learning experience for their students.
TAKE YOUR SKILLS TO THE NEXT LEVEL
Like a class curriculum, a short term study abroad program takes a lot of planning that can be overwhelming if it’s not structured. Organization and time management skills are absolutely vital for your position and are important traits for your professional profile. Through planning school trips, you can make your institution stand out with an international program!
Ordinary school trips are common - almost two-thirds of domestic educational trips stay either in the same state as the school or within 50 miles in the area - but an international program stands out. It shows an important innovation to keep up with an increasingly global society that spans far beyond the classroom!
ENHANCE YOUR CLASSROOM EXPERIENCE
The students and teachers love experiencing the world through our custom programs because they extend the learning objectives and the school’s mission beyond the classroom! The core behind a truly meaningful international program comes from connecting students with communities around the world.
Travel makes education last: from a survey of 400 adults who took educational trips between ages 12 and 18, over 300 said that their experience with travel made them more interested in what they were learning in school. This data comes from secondary education school trips staying in the country; imagine how much more interested students can become in your class material after an educational adventure in a foreign country!
You can also liven up your existing class material with pictures from class trips abroad! You might just inspire more students to learn more through their own travels!
Our passion comes from our desire to bring learning to life is our passion! For us, the best way to bring education to life is through traveling. The students and teachers we work with love experiencing the world through our custom, short-term study abroad programs.
IMMERSIVE LEARNING
Add a new, unforgettable element as enrichment to your school’s curriculum. There is so much students can learn from a trip abroad beyond the culture and history of a place. Students can also gain new perspectives that they can use to think outside of the box.
Immersive trips abroad can also inspire students to write engaging, one-of-a-kind stories for their college applications! Colleges are always looking for openness and eagerness in their prospective students. It takes a great teacher to bring out the best in students, and you can play a role in bringing your students’ successes and your school’s standing to a higher level!
THE JOURNEY AWAITS
Taking your students abroad is more than a field trip - it is a new combination of experiences that can improve the futures of your students, your school, and your own! It challenges what they know to be true, their beliefs of the world and it inspires them to want to learn more.
In a short period of time, you can develop advanced planning and management skills to add something special to your curriculum and to your professional development, but you can also affect the lives of young people behind your classes and extracurricular activities at school. There are obstacles that all students face when considering going abroad, and our role will be to provide you the tools to support students so those barriers become solvable challenges, and we’re here to help support that!
Take your students and your school beyond their boundaries and boost your career with new fun skills at the same time!
Want to gain more perspective on ways to how you can make bring international experiences onto your campus? To learn more, check out our feature on two-time program alumni and former Spanish teacher Greg Semplice in how Teachers Can Bring The World Into The Classroom and see he used his time abroad to provide him inspiration to support his school community!
READY TO GET STARTED?
Sources
Travel Improves Educational Attainment & Future Success.” WYSE Travel Confederation, 2
Dec. 2019, www.wysetc.org/2013/10/travel-improves-educational-attainment-future-success/.
Peltier, Dan, and James O'Brien. “5 Charts Showing Student Traveler Preferences in the U.S. and
Abroad.” Skift, 15 July 2016, https://skift.com/2016/07/15/5-charts-showing-student-traveler-preferences-in-the-u-s-and-abroad