Seeing, hearing, touching, and exploring: HRA’s first graders apply what they have learned in the classroom across a wide array of subjects at the Virginia Beach Farmers Market

Within the four walls of a classroom, students can hear about where their food comes from and how members of their community produce it. But when students get outside and witness these processes first-hand, the lessons come alive, and young learners truly understand how their daily experience is linked to a wider world.

On Thursday, October 8, Hampton Roads Academy’s first-grade classes had the opportunity to engage in such vivid, hands-on learning about agriculture, nature, nutrition, and the regional community when they spent the day at the Virginia Beach Farmers Market.

True hands-on learning: students try “milking” a model cow during their trip

The year-round marketplace, featuring a bakery, a creamery, seafood and butcher shops, and a host of other farm-related businesses, offers a wealth of educational programming that dovetails with the first-grade curriculum at HRA. Through interactive activities that allowed them to see, touch, and listen to stories about animals, plants, and farm life in the past and present, students applied and expanded upon their classroom coverage of science, social studies, math, English, and health. The first graders explored Virginia agriculture, discovered the connections among animals, plants, and food, and investigated how farmers and other hardworking professionals supply the goods that meet consumers’ wants and needs.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for them to see how learning across different subject areas connects in the real world,” said first-grade teacher Kelley Rhodes—“all within an authentic community setting.”

“Excitement and Curiosity”: A Day Full of Interactive Learning

A field trip to the Virginia Beach Farmers Market has been a staple of the first-grade fall calendar for the past six years. As an educator who has engaged with statewide Agriculture in the Classroom programs for nearly a decade and a half, Rhodes is especially passionate about this tradition, which helps students connect more deeply with both their studies and the local community.

Each year, Rhodes and her fellow first-grade teachers, Staci Lanier and Kim Morgan, collaborate with the Rural Heritage Center to craft a Farmers Market experience full of enriching, hands-on activities.

Students plant seeds to learn about life cycles, natural resources, and where their food comes from

Complementing the first-grade science curriculum, covering natural resources and basic plant structures and life cycles, students visited the Children’s Garden, planted seeds, investigated composting worms, and had the chance to observe honeybees and chickens. Through crafts and stories delivered by program facilitators, the first graders gained a deeper appreciation for the contributions of pollinators, the significance of natural resources, and the ways in which plants become the foods they eat, in turn helping them understand how to make nutritionally sound dietary choices.

These lessons, according to Morgan, “gave the children opportunities to explore nature and learn about the important roles that insects, animals, plants, and the Earth play in our everyday lives.”

The Farmers Market visit was an equally valuable complement to first-grade social studies. In their classes, students learn about communities, occupations, geography, and such economic concepts as goods and services and the relationship between producers and consumers. By meeting farmers and exploring the work they do in the field, in their homes, and in the marketplace, students witnessed a tangible illustration of all of these concepts in action.

Exploring farm work from centuries past: students have a blast churning butter by hand

The first graders also had the opportunity to discover farm life first-hand by milking a life-sized model cow and trying out historical agricultural tasks, such as pumping water and grinding corn into cornmeal by hand, washing clothing with a traditional washboard and tub, and churning cream into butter.

“These activities allowed them to experience how people lived and worked in the past while developing a greater appreciation for where the things they use every day come from,” Morgan said. “What I enjoy most is seeing the excitement and curiosity the children have as they explore.”

Along the way, students practiced math skills as they counted and packaged eggs and sorted and weighed vegetables at a farm stand, applying their number sense and measurement abilities to practical scenarios. They even utilized crucial language and communication skills, from speaking and listening to vocabulary development, as they observed program facilitators’ presentations and asked questions to advance their learning.

The field trip reinforced not only classroom curricula, but also a range of hands-on experiences on HRA’s campus. Students help care for the Lower School Garden by weeding, watering, and harvesting ripe fruits and vegetables. In the state-of-the-art Martha H. Patten Hydroponics Lab & STEAM Classroom, Lower Schoolers join their older peers in cultivating such foods as strawberries and lettuce, learning about plant biology while also serving their community by providing produce to the Mary and Larry Pope Dining Hall and to families throughout the region. Like their visit to the Farmers Market, these learning opportunities throughout the year underscore how coursework across disciplines relates to the roles students play, and will continue to play as adults, as citizens of Hampton Roads.

“The Entire System Becomes Visible to Them”

First graders develop math skills by counting and packaging fresh eggs

Among the most valuable aspects of the Virginia Beach Farmers Market trip, according to Rhodes, is that “students can directly see how Virginia’s land, natural resources, people, and businesses work together to meet the needs of a community.”

“The entire system becomes visible to them,” she said. “Farms use natural resources, farmers and other producers create goods, those goods are brought to market, and consumers and their families purchase them. For first graders, concepts like producers, consumers, goods, services, and natural resources can feel fairly abstract in the classroom. At the Farmers Market, those ideas become something they can actually see and experience.”

“It brings so much of our classroom learning to life for our students,” Lanier added. “I loved seeing their excitement as they got to touch, explore, and experience things that they have only talked about in the classroom. It was such a memorable, hands-on experience for our first graders, and I loved watching their curiosity and wonder throughout the day.”

Indeed, this field trip not only illuminated connections between the curriculum and the real world, but also made learning about nature, health, agriculture, and the community undeniably fun. From the Farmers Market’s highly interactive educational programming to an outdoor picnic lunch and the opportunity to enjoy a freshly made sweet treat at the on-site creamery, it was a day full of activities that would bring a smile to any young learner’s face.

“The children absolutely love the experience,” Rhodes said. “It is the kind of field trip they remember and talk about for years!”

A day full of fun memories for the first graders

All smiles from HRA’s seventh graders as they kayak on Mariners’ Lake

For Middle School science teacher Marcy Ouellette, each spring is an opportunity to bring her students outside the classroom to “experience something they never have before.”

On Monday, May 18, Hampton Roads Academy’s seventh graders did just that when Ouellette led her life science classes on the fifth annual field trip to Mariners’ Lake, a beautiful 167-acre freshwater lake on the grounds of the Mariners’ Museum and Park in Newport News. The students spent the day kayaking, studying aquatic life, and constructing and racing waterborne vessels as a demonstration of principles of dynamics and buoyancy.

The experience was a stimulating blend of hands-on scientific learning and outdoor fun, allowing students to apply what they have learned this year about ecology and conservation while building a foundation for topics they will encounter in future STEM courses. Above all, the outing was a reminder that an HRA education begins on campus but is consistently engaged with the wider world.

Building New Skills and Confidence

Students learn about paddling technique and safety before heading out on the lake

The seventh-grade Mariners’ Lake field trip was initially organized in 2022 through a partnership between then-Director of Middle School Lisa Thatcher (now Director of the Student Support Center) and former Upper School Spanish teacher Katherine Garner, whose husband Kelly still manages the Mariners’ Lake Program at the Mariners’ Museum. It has since become a beloved tradition, elevating both the curriculum and student life in HRA’s Middle School.

According to Ouellette, among the most valuable aspects of the trip is that both the experimental and physical activities are new to many of the students every year. A substantial portion of the current seventh-grade class, she noted, had never been in a kayak or spent much time on the water outside of a swimming pool before visiting Mariners’ Lake.

Seventh graders have a blast on the water

The day of firsts began with the students being split into groups of three or four and divided between two activities. Half of the students started by learning about safety in the kayaks with Mr. Garner, whom Ouellette described as “amazing with the kids” and skilled at “get[ting] the kids who you can tell are apprehensive or scared of doing it out on the lake.”

The most confident kayakers were given the freedom to explore the entire lake, while others safely paddled over a smaller portion of the body of water, with the least experienced not straying far from the shallow cove where they launched. With many laughs and smiles out on the lake as the students grew more sure of themselves on the water, kayaking was an undeniable highlight for the seventh graders.

Applied Learning and a Solid Foundation

Scientific study in the field: students analyze macroinvertebrates under the microscope

As they awaited their turn in the kayaks, the second group of students completed hands-on scientific activities in two stations. In one, they used field microscopes to examine macroinvertebrates—worms, crayfish, nymph and larval insects—who had built their homes in leaf litter trapped in a net placed in the lake to collect organisms for roughly a month prior to the seventh graders’ visit. This exercise reinforced a range of topics Ouellette’s students had covered in the classroom, from plants and invertebrate animals to water quality and other facets of the natural world. Identifying and studying organisms “fresh out of the lake,” the life science teacher explained, deepened students’ understanding by allowing them to connect abstract concepts to a specific habitat in their community.

Crucially, completing this activity outside the laboratory gave students the opportunity to “get out and do some actual science off campus,” Ouellette said. One of her favorite parts of the field trip every year, she remarked, is witnessing the rapid shift from fear to fascination as her seventh graders encounter mayfly larvae and other “critters.”

Their enthusiasm for biology will lay a foundation for more in-depth coverage of the subject in Upper School, especially in science teacher Lauren Oaks’ oceanography course, open to students in Grades 9 through 12.

Hands-on learning: students put their miniature sailboats—and their knowledge of physics—to the test

More immediately, the seventh graders previewed topics they will cover next year in physical science at the second experimental station at Mariners’ Lake, where they were challenged to build and test miniature sailboats. Using supplies provided in kits, the students worked in groups to construct vessels and competed against their classmates to see whose boat would sail the fastest when propelled by a fan along a tube of PVC piping.

This friendly competition, according to Ouellette, not only offered a fun application of the physics of buoyancy and motion, but also helped foster camaraderie among the students.

After gathering for lunch, the kayaking and experimental groups switched activities, reconvening at the end of the day for a “circle group” to share what they had learned and most enjoyed over the course of the field trip.

Sparking Passions

Beyond merely reinforcing HRA’s curriculum, the visit to Mariners’ Lake also encouraged students to take their role in conservation seriously. Generating a grounded discussion about practical steps students can take, as members of their local community, to preserve the environment in and around the lake, the trip picked up on work that begins in the Lower School and continues in the Upper School years, in Ouellette’s words, “to get them to really start thinking about what we can do to fix things.”

“I learned about not leaving a trace,” said seventh grader Marin Mazzurco ’31, “and that if you leave trash in the lake, it will eventually pollute the Atlantic Ocean.”

Connecting scientific study with unforgettable activities one could not perform in a classroom setting, Ouellette explained, helps inspire the sort of passion that transforms students into responsible citizens. The fun of kayaking and conducting outdoor experiments is not merely an end-of-year treat, but also an experience that makes young learners invested in applying science for the benefit of the natural world.

This excitement is a gift that the students themselves pay forward every spring. “They always come back telling next year’s class how great it is,” Ouellette said.

After the trip, seventh grader Tommy Lanier ’31 marveled at how much he had learned about aquatic microbes as well as such topics as noise pollution and mindfulness. “I could not have ever learned these things without the experience of the outside, nature, and wildlife,” he said.

“It was also really fun to see the turtles sitting on the logs. We saw some baby ones, and they were so cute!” Mazzurco added. “It was so much fun to be out on the water, sitting in the middle of the lake, deep in nature.”

Making memories and embracing environmental stewardship

Junior Abigail Berg ’27 proudly holds up the trophy for First Place Class A Concert Band

Hampton Roads Academy congratulates our Middle School Choir Club and combined Middle and Upper School Spring Trip Festival Band on their award-winning performances at the 2026 Music in the Parks Festival, hosted on Saturday, May 9, at Kings Dominion. The instrumentalists took home the first-place prize for Class A Concert Band, while HRA as a whole was recognized with the Esprit de Corps Award, the coveted final trophy bestowed at the awards ceremony.

The Music in the Parks program invites student ensembles from across the United States and Canada to perform for expert adjudicators and receive valuable feedback before spending a fun-filled day in a regional amusement park. Participation in the festival is a highly anticipated annual tradition for performing arts groups at the Academy. This year, HRA’s talented student musicians, led by Director of Bands Brian Grieb and Middle and Upper School choir director Marshall Severin, competed against 35 ensembles representing 16 different schools across four states.

The Spring Trip Festival Band’s top honors in the High School Concert Band category are a testament to the strength of HRA’s band program as a whole, which recently distinguished itself with a historic performance at the VBODA District VIII Jazz Assessment. The Middle School Choir Club’s strong showing, meanwhile, indicates a bright future for a vocal program that has recently set itself apart through a consistent record of district-leading VMEA Honors Choir participation and the unprecedented success of the eighth- through twelfth-grade pop a cappella group Nowhere to Hide on campus and beyond.

A day of music and fun at Kings Dominion

HRA is especially proud to have earned the Esprit de Corps Award, the only Music in the Parks honor conferred upon a school, rather than an individual ensemble. The prize recognizes the participating school that has best demonstrated maturity, professionalism, respect, and kindness.

“We were honored to accept the award and are grateful to all of our wonderful students who represented the best of the Navigator spirit,” Severin said. “They truly embodied the ideas of honor, respect, and responsibility. It is a pleasure to see this cultivated and made manifest in the arts classrooms here at HRA.”

Severin and Grieb extended special thanks the chaperones who helped make the trip to Kings Dominion a wonderful time for all. Upper School history teacher Christopher Joyce, Middle School history teacher Christine Joyce, and a large team of parent volunteers made the day’s triumphs possible, and the choir and band directors expressed deep gratitude for their role in supporting, shaping, and celebrating an outstanding group of young musicians.

We cannot wait to see what the future holds for HRA’s band and choral ensembles!

Kindergarten teacher Caroline Thatcher ’16 with her students in front of the Virginia Living Museum

On April 13, Hampton Roads Academy’s Kindergarten classes spent the day learning about their state’s wildlife, ecosystems, biodiversity, and more through hands-on activities at the Virginia Living Museum (VLM).

The museum’s exhibits gave some of HRA’s youngest students the opportunity to see and touch live organisms from all regions of the Commonwealth and all habitats, from the mountains to the ocean. The VLM also boasts a vast collection of non-living specimens that further enriched the students’ learning, including taxidermied animals, fossils, eggs, shells, and an Ice Age mastodon. During the visit, a visually stunning planetarium show made for an experience that was literally out of this world.

A long-running tradition for the Academy’s kindergarteners, the field trip not only provided the students with exposure to Virginia’s natural heritage in a fun and interactive format, but also deepened these young learners’ understanding of such important themes as conservation and environmental stewardship, connecting the classroom STEM curriculum to the obligations of responsible citizenship.

“The VLM is ideal because it incorporates educational programs, museum exhibits, and outside settings to expand students’ experiences with nature and science,” said Kindergarten teacher Josephine Kovalcik. “Each visit provides opportunities for new discoveries.”

“Making the Material Come to Life”

Poking around inside: students have fun exploring a tortoise shell

The wide array of species and subjects featured in the VLM perfectly mirrors the impressive breadth of HRA kindergarteners’ studies on the natural world. Their day at the museum was a whirlwind tour through a range of topics they had addressed in the classroom—from plant and animal life to celestial bodies and taxonomic classifications—vividly and tangibly elevated by being brought into three dimensions.

“Students can only learn so much in the classroom through pictures and books,” Kindergarten teacher Caroline Thatcher ’16 observed. Students’ understanding reaches new heights, she explained, “when they have the opportunity to travel off campus with their classmates and see the pictures come to life.”

Destiny Lindsay, Thatcher’s fellow Kindergarten teacher, echoed her praise for the value the Virginia Living Museum adds to the curriculum. “Educators at the VLM help enhance our instruction by making the material come to life,” she said. Having visited the museum since she herself was in elementary school, Lindsay stressed that the unique strength of HRA’s partnership with the VLM lies in the Kindergarten team’s close collaboration with the staff to ensure that activities are not only age-appropriate for students, but also “thoughtful, diverse, and content-specific.”

Hands-on learning: the kindergarteners learn about shells and marine life by reaching into a tank to touch an array of specimens

As they toured exhibits highlighting the animals and habitats of Virginia’s Appalachian coves, Piedmont, cypress swamps, and coastal waters, students were able to connect first-hand observations to material they had learned throughout the year covering ecology, food chains, landforms, waterways, natural cycles, and more. Displays on Virginia’s underground treasures, such as fossils, rocks, and minerals, made more abstract concepts such as natural resources and extinction concrete and engaging.

The students also participated in two special educational programs that provided an interactive and stimulating glimpse into the natural world on multiple scales, from the smallest creatures to vast cosmic phenomena. 

A “Wonderful Wildlife” presentation, designed specifically for Lower School-aged children, allowed the kindergarteners to meet a variety of live animals—reptiles, mammals, birds, fish, and invertebrates—and discover their role in the ecosystem. Then, in the darkness of the museum’s Abbitt Planetarium & Observatory, the “Virginia Skies” program gave students the opportunity to apply their knowledge of the solar system and the shifting seasons as a staff astronomer guided them through the constellations, planets, and other celestial bodies visible from the Commonwealth in the early spring night sky.

“Caring about the World around Them”

Up close and personal: students meet a northern river otter

Marveling at the wonders of the cosmos and interacting with native Virginia species are of course fun and memorable ways for young students to build a strong foundation in key scientific concepts. However, as HRA’s Kindergarten teachers stressed, visiting the VLM each year achieves far more than reinforcing and expanding on the classroom curriculum.

What makes this field trip “unlike any other,” according to Lindsay, is the Virginia Living Museum’s unique ability to spark “enthusiasm for what our state and region have to offer.”

Thatcher agreed. Whether they were born in the Commonwealth or their families recently moved here, she said, there is value in encouraging young students to “learn about the unique natural heritage of Virginia. At this age, it is really about them noticing and caring about the world around them.”

Nothing makes a student care about local wildlife, ecosystems, and conservation efforts quite like experiencing them first-hand. And when students develop an investment in the natural world at an early age, they lay a foundation for a lifetime of engagement with environmental causes that affect their community and the planet as a whole. HRA starts building this foundation in Kindergarten in order to shape each Navigator into an ethical, service-minded future leader.

Seniors Nancy Arena ’26, Carys Casper ’26, and Khloe Jobson ’26 take in historic works of art at the VMFA

Hampton Roads Academy embraces the ideals of a liberal arts education, providing students with both broad and meaningful exposure to a diverse range of disciplines. The goal of this approach is not merely to equip students to quote Shakespeare and evaluate integrals. Rather, the Academy’s well-rounded curriculum challenges students to think critically and draw connections between topics to arrive at deeper insights—an ability that will serve them well both in college and throughout their lives.

HRA’s soon-to-graduate twelfth graders spent a full day practicing this crucial skill on Thursday, March 19, during the fifth annual senior field trip to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA). Featuring more than 50,000 works from throughout history and across the globe, this world-class art museum, conveniently located just up the road in Richmond, provided a perfect environment not only to admire breathtaking paintings, sculptures, ceramics, and more, but also to use art as a lens for exploring subjects ranging from history to mathematics.

As in past years, in organizing the trip, AP Literature teacher and Dean of Student Life Laurie Hager made an effort to invite Upper School faculty members from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds to facilitate this experience.

Among them were two veteran chaperones: Upper School counselor and psychology teacher Elizabeth Rous, who explored cognitive phenomena through Impressionist paintings, and English Department Chair Scott George, who discussed mythology with students in the ancient world gallery. New to the trip were math teacher Farica Erwin, who highlighted the mathematics behind Renaissance artwork; visual arts teacher Jack Westervelt, who tackled the intermingling of Eastern and Western cultural traditions in the East Asian galleries; and Director of Theatre Kate Goddin, who used the VMFA’s collection of Fabergé eggs to open up conversations about Russian history and contemporary drama.

Middle and Upper School visual arts teacher Jack Westervelt challenges students to consider how works on display at the museum reflect the meeting and intermingling of cultures throughout world history

During their visit, the students freely moved between the chaperones’ stations, along the way completing a hunt for literary motifs in works of art that reflected their readings from throughout the year.

This “interdisciplinary juggernaut,” Hager explained, provided “a platform for different [teachers] to bring in their expertise and their ideas—and for students also to bring in their experiences and be able to perceive fresh inspiration by looking at art in a different way.”

“Out in the world, being able to synthesize information will be vital to being a lifelong learner and will enrich their lives,” Westervelt added. “I’m very grateful to have the opportunity to be a part of that.”

A Nexus of Interdisciplinarity

When Hager initiated the tradition of bringing the senior class to the VMFA in 2022, she was drawing on a deep background in interdisciplinary education.

For a number of years prior to joining the faculty at HRA, she taught for the summer Virginia Governor’s School for the Humanities at the University of Richmond, where cross-disciplinary dialogue between students focused on disparate topics, from history and journalism to visual art and theatre, was an integral facet of the curriculum. In previous roles, she also taught AP European History and AP World History, as well as the strongly interdisciplinary IB Theory of Knowledge course. Since pivoting to teaching English at HRA, she has made a point of incorporating elements of her prior disciplinary foci to challenge students to consider the historical context, the musical soundscape, and the popular culture of the eras in which literary works were produced.

Cam Hall ’26 and Ares Marvell-Nguyen ’26 study a glazed ceramic vessel from eighteenth-century Japan

The VMFA, Hager noted, is perfectly designed to facilitate similar connections between subjects that are too often siloed from one another. Boasting extraordinary collections spanning the European Renaissance, the ancient world, twentieth-century modernism, and rich Asian and African art traditions, all presented with “top-notch” interpretation and arranged in a space that is manageable within a day, the museum naturally invites visitors to consider links between a variety of periods, movements, and cultures across all continents.

Throughout the year, Hager has helped students develop the skills they would eventually apply on the field trip. Asking seniors to examine works of art from throughout world history, she has challenged them to articulate how these images visually mirror the themes and characterization they have encountered in linguistic form in the works they have read.

“This is what I’m asking them to do when we get to the museum,” she said. “Make these broader connections. Make these stronger links. Find meaning. Don’t be intimidated by art. Don’t be intimidated by literature. You bring something fresh and new to the experience based on your own experiences.”

As an instructor who works with twelfth graders every day, Hager is confident that her students are ready for this challenge each spring. “One of the wonderful things about being a teacher of seniors is that I get to walk with them through this final stage of their high school experience,” she observed. “We reflect back frequently on the ways in which their knowledge and their expertise and their interests can play into their interpretation of literature within the context of the class, but we can also extend this beyond the classroom.”

According to the Dean of Student Life, applying what one has learned in a new setting like a museum is valuable practice for taking ownership of new experiences in college and in one’s career—and the key to finding meaning and connection in each phase of life.

The World Reflected in Art

During the trip, students were presented with a list of literary motifs, harkening back to works they had encountered this year in their AP Literature and comparative literature classes, for which Hager and George tasked them with hunting throughout the museum. Subjects included a forest scene reminiscent of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a work symbolizing the sort of control wielded by Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and a piece that thematically echoes absurdist fiction. There was no one work students were to identify for each theme. Rather, the goal was for them to provide an evidence-based justification for each of the connections they had drawn.

As they navigated the galleries, the students encountered and engaged in intellectual boundary-bridging activities with their faculty chaperones, whom Hager described as “pivotal in making this annual trip such a meaningful experience for our senior class.”

English Department Chair Scott George and Nancy Arena ’26 discuss a statue of the Roman Emperor Caligula in the ancient world gallery

George, for example, explored mythological stories reflected in works in the VMFA’s ancient art collections. His goal, as he explained, was not to dwell on the particularities of millennia-old cultures, but rather to highlight universal themes with which thinkers and artists have grappled across time.

“I like to focus on how ‘we’—as in humanity—express ourselves, because we’re all asking and trying to answer the same questions, no matter what era we live in,” George said.

Westervelt similarly strove to cross chasms of time and space during his workshop in the East Asian galleries. Centering creative expression, he asked students to observe and meditate on a piece of art and compose a haiku. To guide the seniors’ reflections during this activity, he drew their attention to such works as an eleventh-century Chinese bodhisattva and eighteenth-century pottery from Joseon-period Korea to discuss the differences between Eastern and Western artistic and philosophical traditions and the eventual “meeting” of the two through trade and the emergence of composite styles like Dutch Delftware and Art Deco. The art teacher connected these changes to the modern phenomenon of globalization, inspiring students to consider how the Internet has allowed for an intermingling of cultures and artforms on an unprecedented scale.

Just as Westervelt drew on East Asian pieces to explore a larger history of cultural exchange, Goddin leaned into her love of storytelling by using the VMFA’s priceless Fabergé eggs as an entry point for telling the story of their former owners, Russia’s ill-fated royal family, the Romanovs. Focusing on the dramatic tale of Anna Anderson, the imposter who claimed to be the princess Anastasia, having escaped execution by the Bolsheviks, the Director of Theatre explained how art could provide a window into a gripping story that lives on through film and television adaptations and the Broadway musical Anastasia.

Unexpected Connections

The day’s presentations demonstrated that one cannot fully understand a work of art without contemplating subjects often treated as wholly separate from creative expression.

One of the clearest illustrations of this idea was Erwin’s presentation in the Renaissance gallery. This year’s trip marked the first time that the Math Department had been included in the VMFA field trip, and Erwin, certified to teach both mathematics and art, seized the opportunity to explain “how those worlds intersect.” Addressing such topics as perspective and composition, she challenged students to identify the math underlying the construction of Renaissance masterpieces and noted how these precisely crafted works reflect a movement to explain the world scientifically in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Upper School counselor and psychology teacher Elizabeth Rous asks students to examine their subjective experience of paintings through the lens of perceptual grouping principles

Rous took a similarly surprising tack when she referred to paintings by such artists as Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Eugène Boudin to illustrate the Gestalt theory of perception in psychology. Rous explained how the Impressionists implicitly took into account five principles of perceptual grouping, which she outlined in a brochure, in order to convey messages and emotions through their works. As she explained to the students, “We use these grouping principles throughout our lives—not just in art galleries, but while watching a football game, at a performance in the theatre, listening to music, and even when shopping on Amazon.”

As students began to grasp the connections between century-old artwork and the incredible complexity of human psychology and everyday experience, Rous said, “The ‘a-ha’ moments are so cool to witness!”

Making Memories before Graduation

Every year, according to Hager, the VMFA field trip makes for an unforgettable day for the graduating seniors. As she noted, this tradition marks “one of the rare times that they all get to come together as a class to have an experience that’s external to the building.”

Students enjoy lunch—and reflect on connections they made in the galleries—in the VMFA’s Robin Sculpture Garden

The experience was made more meaningful by the freedom and trust the faculty chaperones extended to the students as a testament to their growth as they prepare to begin their next chapter. Their teachers allowed them to explore the galleries independently, confident that they would interact respectfully with other museumgoers and with the works on display. Inviting the students to dress in jeans and college sweatshirts, Hager hoped their fellow museum patrons would view them not as high school students on a field trip, but rather as young adults, perhaps university students who had simply taken a morning to visit the VMFA.

Hager’s favorite part of the day, she remarked, was sitting on the grass with the students in the museum’s Robin Sculpture Garden, where they enjoyed boxed lunches prepared by Chef Uwe Schluszas and reflected on everything they had encountered in the galleries. As she interacted with the seniors, she was delighted by their surprise at their teachers’ depth of knowledge about topics entirely apart from the focus of their courses.

“It’s not so much the art itself,” she said. “It’s that they’re coming to a new meaning and a new appreciation by listening to the expertise of the faculty members and being challenged to think about art in a new way.”

“Connections are everywhere if we’re willing to look for them,” Goddin observed. “We have to stay curious and be open to taking in new information.”

Dr. Maribel Gendreau (second from left) with her anatomy and physiology class at THRIVE Peninsula food pantry

With cutting-edge facilities right on its campus, Hampton Roads Academy is committed to using its resources not only to provide an unmatched learning experience for its students, but also to benefit the community at large.

This winter, Upper School science teacher Dr. Maribel Gendreau’s anatomy and physiology class exemplified this wider impact by partnering with THRIVE Peninsula food pantry in Newport News to supply local families with fresh produce cultivated in HRA’s own Martha H. Patten Hydroponics Lab and STEAM Classroom. The two-month-long advocacy project culminated on Thursday, February 26, with a visit to THRIVE Peninsula, where the students delivered the vegetables they had grown and spent the afternoon volunteering in the food pantry.

Gendreau guides her students as they seed leafy greens for their winter 2026 advocacy project

Throughout January and February, as Gendreau’s eleventh and twelfth graders maintained their plants and tracked their growth, they gained hands-on insight into how food is produced and affects our bodies while also learning what food insecurity looks like in their community. A quiet epidemic, food insecurity affects about one in nine individuals in Hampton Roads. The crisis is especially pronounced in the winter months, when food pantries, unequipped with indoor hydroponic growing towers, often struggle to provide fresh produce.

“What excites me most about this project is the chance for our students to give back to the community and really understand that there are families who don’t always know where their next meal will come from,” Gendreau said. “Growing leafy greens to donate to a local pantry lets them take what they’ve learned and actually make a difference,” in the process “building cooking skills, teamwork, and a better understanding of how food impacts health and community.”

Hands-On Learning with a Broader Impact

The anatomy and physiology class’ collaboration with THRIVE Peninsula is part of a year-long curriculum that centers the intersections of biochemistry, diet, and society.

Throughout the fall semester, Gendreau’s students learned about food, nutrition, and human health through such practical activities as growing kale in desktop hydroponic units to make kale chips, cultivating peppers and cilantro to prepare fresh salsa, and exploring the benefits of tea and other foods and beverages rich in antioxidants and vitamins.

Senior Grace Lee ’26 plants seeds to provide nutritious produce to the community

Support for experiential learning throughout the food and nutrition unit has come from Pilot Light, a nonprofit organization that empowers teachers to bring food education into the classroom and thereby inspire students to become informed citizens. As a member of Pilot Light’s 2025-2026 Food Education Fellowship cohort, Gendreau has received funding for materials and food for weekly hands-on lessons that take advantage of the unparalleled resources available in HRA’s hydroponics laboratory. Her active involvement in this selective professional development opportunity has been a boon to both her students and HRA’s community-engaged mission.

On January 7, just after winter break, Gendreau’s class launched their advocacy project as a way to apply their skills and knowledge beyond the walls of the Academy. Split into five groups of two, each responsible for 28 plants in a hydroponic growing tower, the students tracked the progress of such greens as kale, arugula, butter lettuce, and sweet crisp lettuce for more than seven weeks. In order to ensure that they would produce healthy and delicious produce for families visiting the food pantry, they watered the plants every other day and adjusted the pH and electrical conductivity (a measure of nutrient concentration in the water) biweekly.

This meticulous process, senior and aspiring nutrition and dietetics major Grace Lee ’26 explained, “has taught me that the solution to this crisis is not simply providing more food, but higher-quality, nutritionally sound food. By growing our own food in the hydroponics lab, we are actively attempting to close the nutritional gap in our community.”

Access to nourishing produce, Lee stressed, “is a right, not a luxury.”

Combining STEM with Service

Junior Faith Gregory ’27 harvests vegetables to deliver to the food pantry

By teaming up with THRIVE Peninsula, HRA’s anatomy and physiology students will ensure that every family in Hampton Roads can enjoy that right.

Junior Caroline Short ’27 was especially excited to partner with THRIVE this semester, having volunteered for the organization several times since the summer before her sophomore year and collaborated with them on a food drive through the American Heart Association Club. “One thing I love about THRIVE is that they have a garden connected to the building that supplies them with fresh produce during spring and summer,” she said. “However, during winter, many of the plants can no longer survive.”

With its state-of-the-art hydroponics laboratory, Short noted, HRA is uniquely positioned to remedy this deficit and provide leafy greens rich in essential vitamins and minerals even during the coldest months of the year.

Juniors Ashlyn Davis ’27 and Daphne Ambrosino ’27 help local families obtain groceries while volunteering at THRIVE Peninsula

On February 26, the students witnessed the impact of their efforts first-hand when they delivered their vegetables to the food pantry. The day before, they had harvested the produce they had tended for weeks, weighed it, and separated it into bundles to bring to THRIVE Peninsula. Then, after school hours, they volunteered their time to help families obtain nutritious groceries, including their own leafy greens.

For Gendreau and her class, the gratitude of their neighbors was the greatest reward.

“Through our unique take on ‘farm to table,’” Lee said, “we learned that our resources and skills are not just for our benefit, but are powerful tools that we can use to strengthen and bring our community together.”

“Let’s be honest,” Gendreau added—“everything just tastes better when it’s made to share with others.”

Upper School science teachers Dr. Maribel Gendreau (far left) and Lauren Oaks (far right) accompany members of the Sustainability Club on a visit to the plot they will be rewilding in partnership with the Mariners’ Museum and Park

As soon as they returned from their winter break, the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors of Hampton Roads Academy’s newly formed, student-run Sustainability Club embarked on a partnership with the Mariners’ Museum and Park in Newport News to convert a nearby plot of land back into a native meadow.

The first collaboration of its kind between a high school and the Mariners’ Museum, the rewilding initiative was made possible by a grant from the Walking Softer Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to raise awareness about challenges confronting the planet and empower student-led environmental projects through investments, awards, and scholarships.

According to Upper School biology teacher Dr. Maribel Gendreau, who serves as faculty sponsor for the Sustainability Club, this inaugural initiative reflects her students’ mission “to turn ideas into hands-on projects that make a difference at school and beyond.”

“What excites me the most about the rewilding project is its ability to make a difference in our community,” said sophomore Henry Kaplow ’28, the club’s founder and president. “Restoring native meadows like these is really important because it expands the habitat of native plants and animals while restoring the area to its original beauty. I hope this project will positively impact the Mariners’ Museum and provide a framework for other schools to follow in our footsteps.”

Planting Seeds

Students measure and mark the boundaries of the plot they will seed with native plants

The Sustainability Club directed the restoration project from the earliest stages of planning in fall 2025. Following initial conversations between Gendreau and the Mariners’ Museum team about the idea of rewilding the local area, the students met directly with their partners at the museum via Zoom to discuss next steps. The club quickly secured funding by submitting a project presentation to Walking Softer.

On Wednesday, January 7, the students hit the ground running with an initial visit to the 10,000-square-foot site off Copeland Lane, near the museum, that they will work to transform in the coming months. With help from Gendreau and Upper School chemistry teacher Lauren Oaks, club members measured the plot, marked its boundaries, and tagged invasive crape myrtles for removal. That Friday, the trees were removed, setting the stage for three rounds of soil tilling over the span of four weeks.

Meanwhile, students will meet to research native Virginia grasses and flowers, selecting and ordering plants based on their knowledge of the history of the Mariners’ Museum site. This meticulous process will ensure that the species they plant thrive and attract pollinators and other wildlife to the plot.

After designing a planting layout, the club plans to return to the site on February 21 to spread seeds, cover them with straw, and erect signage and a deer-deterrent fence. On subsequent visits, the students will monitor and document the progress of the restoration through photographs and video. They will also install cameras to study which insect and larger animal species are attracted to the meadow as it returns to a wild state.

The Start of a Community Effort

Invasive crape myrtles removed to clear space for the return of native flora and the restoration of local animal habitats

As Gendreau explained, this project will allow members of the Sustainability Club to apply what they have studied in class about ecosystems, native plants, and human impact to a real-world challenge, empowering them to play an active role in improving the local environment. Through sustainable food production activities in the Martha H. Patten Hydroponics Lab and STEAM Classroom, students have already learned about approaches that can promote healthy, resilient ecosystems. Now, by rewilding a plot of land just a stone’s throw away in Newport News, Gendreau said, the club will “improve soil health, increase biodiversity, and help communities learn how humans can repair and coexist with the natural environment.”

She predicted that a successful transformation of the site will “inspire schools and clubs in the area to partner with the Mariners’ Museum to rewild additional plots until the area is fully rewilded.”

For the students, the prospect of a larger community effort stemming from their work is the most exciting aspect of this initiative.

“I hope that if this project is seen by the public,” said ninth grader and Sustainability Club member Grace Bradley ’29, “they will have a sense of appreciation for nature and the knowledge that change is being made to make a healthier Earth.”

“The most important lesson I’ve learned in the Sustainability Club is that change isn’t something you can do by yourself. It takes a group of like-minded people to get the job done,” she added.

Fortunately, according to Kaplow, HRA is the perfect place to start cultivating a wider environmentally conscious community committed to restoring local biodiversity.

“There is a large group of students and faculty at HRA that share an interest in sustainability,” he said. “Having a dedicated place to interact with all of these amazing people is one way that the Sustainability Club has made HRA a better place.”

Fourth-grade teachers Jennifer Massengill, Gretchen Speece, and Savannah Whitten bring their students to the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown

With the United States semiquincentennial just a few months away in July 2026, Hampton Roads Academy’s fourth-grade classes took their studies out of the classroom and straight to the location of one of the most important events in the nation’s founding.

On Wednesday, November 11, the students visited the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, just a stone’s throw away from the site of the decisive British surrender to the Continental Army in 1783.

The excursion, a first for HRA’s Lower School team, was a natural complement to the fourth-grade history curriculum. “This field trip allowed the students the opportunity to take a step back in time and experience their Virginia studies lessons with immersive, hands-on learning,” said fourth-grade teacher Gretchen Speece. “We are fortunate that Yorktown is a short distance from our campus.”

As Speece noted, the timing for a visit to a war museum—particularly one dealing with the Revolution—could not have been more ideal. The trip followed immediately on the heels of Veterans Day on November 11 and the 250th anniversary of the establishment of the Marine Corps by the Continental Congress on November 10, 1775.

While military history is central to the story the museum tells, the insights the fourth graders gained from their visit extended far beyond battles and treaties. According to fourth-grade teacher Jennifer Massengill, the museum’s multimodal approach, encompassing interactive media and live demonstrations as well as traditional galleries, “help[ed] the students see the people of the Revolution as real people, who faced challenges, made sacrifices, and made a life for themselves—not just stories in a book.” When students have the opportunity “to see, touch, smell the things we have been learning about in our classes,” she explained, history becomes personal and truly comes alive.

An Immersive Experience

Students explore the immersive museum galleries

The students’ guided tour offered no shortage of unique ways to learn about life during the Revolution and the development of the early United States.

Following a trip to Jamestown earlier in the school year, highlighting the establishment of the first permanent English settlement in North America, the visit to Yorktown allowed the fourth graders to appreciate how colonial society and politics in Virginia and beyond had evolved in the century and a half leading up to the revolutionary era. In their classes prior to the trip, the students had learned about brewing discord between the colonies and the British government on the eve of the war. As fourth-grade teacher Savannah Whitten noted, “our trip to the museum [showed] them just how important those disagreements were for the formation of our country 250 years ago.”

The galleries of the American Revolution Museum allowed the students to discover this story through historical artifacts, dynamic dioramas, an introductory film in a theatre with 180-degree surround sound and special effects, and various interactive features. These engaging exhibits cover not only the political roots of the revolutionary struggle, but also colonial culture and lifeways, significant battles such as Great Bridge and Yorktown in Virginia, conditions on the home front, efforts to construct a new nation and Constitution after the fighting had stopped, and the intersecting lives of Euro-American settlers, free and enslaved African Americans, and Native American groups forced to choose sides.

An historical interpreter demonstrates how to affix a bayonet and fire an eighteenth-century flintlock musket

The museum’s outdoor displays provided an even more immersive learning experience, enabling students to use all five senses in recreated eighteenth-century settings.

A Continental Army encampment, complete with rows of tents for soldiers, a period-accurate earthen kitchen, and reconstructed quarters for officers, a quartermaster, and a surgeon, deepened the students’ understanding of the logistics and harsh realities of warfare during the Revolution. Guided by costumed interpreters, the fourth graders studied surgical equipment to learn about medical practices in the eighteenth century and observed makeshift dwellings illustrating the living conditions of female relatives of soldiers who earned wages performing crucial domestic labor to support the needs of the army. Adding excitement to the experience, the interpreters reenacted the daily routines of Continental soldiers, including the loading and firing of a flintlock musket.

The students also visited a recreated revolutionary-era farm, depicting the well-documented daily life and chores of eighteenth-century York County farmer Edward Moss, his wife Martha Garrow, their four children, and the six African Americans they held in bondage. Exploring a reconstructed farmhouse, kitchen, tobacco barn, gardens, and crop fields, the fourth graders learned about the challenging material world and profoundly imperfect social structures of the founding generation.

Bringing Revolutionary History Back to HRA

Students learn about the fabric of daily life during the founding generation at a reconstructed revolutionary-era tobacco farm

According to fifth-grade social studies teacher Michelle Miesko, experiences like the fourth-grade field trip to the American Revolution Museum lay an excellent foundation for the curriculum students will tackle once they enter HRA’s Middle School, picking up with U.S. history and government after independence.

The most important lessons for students to learn before making this transition, Miesko noted, transcend surface-level facts about the past. “History is learning about the people and their lives, not simply a series of names, dates, and places,” she said. “It’s important to see leaders and figures from the past as humans with flaws who made difficult decisions and also mistakes.”

Moreover, she explained, studying the Revolution hands-on illuminates the “relationships and connections” at the heart of history. “These relationships can mean the difference between brokering peace or engaging in conflict, forming an alliance or becoming an adversary, and gaining freedom or restricting rights,” Miesko said. “In order to deepen students’ understanding, knowing the backstory of the events and actions that preceded them can provide valuable insight and facilitate connections for the students to the people and events that we study. I love that students are making these connections in fourth grade with the wonderful opportunities and resources the fourth-grade teaching team provides.”

Students gain insight into the life of rank-and-file soldiers at the museum’s recreated Continental Army encampment

Indeed, by grounding America’s story in a local setting, the fourth graders’ visit to Yorktown opened their eyes to the rich history that surrounds them on the Peninsula—and what a privilege it is to be immersed in such a legacy.

Hands-on lessons about the country’s debt to soldiers, officers, and other courageous patriots in centuries past also deepened students’ appreciation of the ways in which this legacy lives on in their own families and in the Navigator community. In this sense, the fourth graders’ field trip was a perfect prelude to the Lower School’s “Salute to the Military” at their Friday, November 14, Leadership Assembly, paying tribute to both veterans and active duty service members with renditions of patriotic songs by students in all grades, culminating with a performance of “Thank You, Soldiers.” The Upper Schoolers, led by Student Council Association President Colten Fulcher ’26, similarly recognized veterans and their spouses during their homeroom on November 11.

“We are rich in military families,” said Director of Lower School Susanne Swain ’78. “It is so meaningful to show these families how much we value them as part of our community at HRA.”