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Metropolitan Learning Center Students Visit Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands
(Bloomfield, CT) Twenty-one students from the CREC Metropolitan Learning Center for Global and International Studies traveled to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands this summer to study the area’s culture and ecosystem and to visit with children who live in area orphanages.
“The CREC Metropolitan Learning Center for Global and International Studies is a school of opportunity,” said Tania Thibault, a counselor at the school and the trip’s organizer. “I am originally from Ecuador. I wanted to share a little bit of me with the students.”
Students left Bloomfield June 22 for John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. From there, they flew to Quito, Ecuador. They later traveled to the Galapagos Islands, spending a total of 11 days abroad.
In Ecuador, the students visited Colegio Mejia. Like the CREC Metropolitan Learning Center for Global and International Studies, Colegio Mejia is an International Baccalaureate school. In addition to learning about the lives of the students in Ecuador, the visit gave CREC students a chance to practice their Spanish.
During their trip, the group also delivered 25 suitcases worth of donations to two orphanages and visited with the children there, taking photos and playing games with them. The suitcases were filled with school supplies, backpacks, clothes, shoes, and other items.
Visiting the orphanages was a life-changing experience for Abigail Bray, a 2016 graduate of the CREC Metropolitan Learning Center for Global and International Studies who will attend UConn this fall. The children were amazing, happy, and smiling, and Bray said CREC students were treated like celebrities while in Ecuador, especially because they were able to take pictures using their smartphones—a luxury Americans take for granted.
The trip was an opportunity to get to know the people you help, added Alee Brown, who will enter her senior year at the school. It was nice to meet face-to-face rather than just sign a check, she said.
The group’s final stop was the Galapagos Islands, where they explored a diverse ecological system, learning about issues of environmental management and preservation and seeing marine iguanas, sharks, and sea lions.
CREC’s Metropolitan Learning Center for Global and International Studies is one of 18 interdistrict magnet schools operated by CREC. The school serves students in grades six through 12 and offers a curriculum that emphasizes cross-cultural awareness and knowledge of the global dynamic, raises awareness of the state of the planet, and fosters an understanding of the consequences of human choice. International travel is one of many opportunities students receive at the school.
