BUILDING A CITY IN THE SEA During the Middle School’s winter minimester, students put themselves in the shoes of refugees to imagine, plan and create a place that they can call home. BY LAUREN HOWARD
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or the last two weeks of the winter semester, Middle School students adopted the personas of refugees from seven countries around the world. Putting themselves in refugees’ shoes, the students’ aim was to work together to create a “City in the Sea” — a place for refugees to live in peace and harmony — as part of an interdisciplinary project called a minimester. 22
BEYOND KING’S
Minimesters replace traditional end-of-semester exams, and provide students with an opportunity to demonstrate what they’ve learned in the classroom, allowing students to implement skills learned throughout the semester including subject-specific skills, research skills and self-directed learning, according to Dean of the Middle School Zina Nasser. “Minimesters are where we learn and educate ourselves on things
outside the regular academic curriculum,” explains Mufleh Akel ’27. The groundwork for building the city in the sea actually began much earlier, with a group of 11 dedicated students who took a semester-long workshop in preparation to lead their peers through the unique learning experience. Under the guidance of faculty members Gamze Keskin Pultz and Carly West, the student leaders