At Staten Island Academy, learning extends far beyond the traditional classroom. This year’s MTerm experience for Grade 11 students invites juniors to spend a week after final exams fully immersed in a subject that sparks their curiosity, creativity, and sense of purpose.
Led by a team of Upper School faculty, these hands-on interdisciplinary courses encourage students to explore new perspectives, develop practical skills, and engage deeply with topics that connect academics to the real world. From musical theater and fashion design to environmental studies, service leadership, and the culture of New York City, MTerm offers students the opportunity to learn by doing while discovering more about themselves and the world around them.
American History Through the Lens of Musical History
Theater is a reflection of contemporary society. Many musicals are set in the past and tell things about both history and the times in which they are written and performed. Using four shows (1776, Hamilton, Suffs and Bloody. Bloody Andrew Jackson), this course will delve into historical events and characters, and their portrayal on stage, machining connections between actual history and its depiction.
Fashion Design
In this course, students will explore the Innovation Lab’s design and fabrication tools to bring their fashion ideas from ideas to wearable garments. Beginning with fashion sketches, students will then build hands-on skills in sewing, digital embroidery design, and digital design for iron-on graphics. By the end of the course, students will follow a guided pattern to complete and take home a hand-made garment of their own.
Love Letters to New York City
This course will examine how NYC figures into people’s lives and more importantly, how it figures into our lives (students and teachers). This love for NYC may be presented fictionally in a story, movie or tv show or through a memoir or reflection. We will read, watch, and discuss what NYC means to each of us and to others.
The course will end with 2-3 days of trips to key places in NYC that speak to the teachers and students; we will learn about the areas before visiting and, as a group, take in all that we can. The ultimate goal is that each student completes the course with their own love letter to NYC, which can be written or visual.
Making Connections in Nature
This course involves studying nature from an interdisciplinary lens. We will use the coastal and forest environments on Staten Island using science, art, writing, history, mathematics, and psychology. Taught by a team of teachers, this course highlights the fact that the environment relates to everything. There will also be plenty of opportunities to get outside, taking advantage of our proximity to the water and the greenbelt.
The New Yorker: A Retrospect
The New Yorker magazine has a fixture in New and American life for over a century. Each week, a new edition brings fiction, news, book and movie reviews to life. Best known for covers and cartoons, the New Yorker magazine remains a prominent part of the American conversation. This course will look at multiple issues and seek to create a small version of our own “New Yorker”.
Turning Values Into Action Through Service and Leadership
This course will help you find what cause(s) are important to you and ways to support those meaningful missions. Everyone has the ability to give back to something that can make an impact for generations to follow. It is important to find something that drives you, challenges you, and interests you, so it does not feel like extra “work” but instead something that is rewarding. We will take time to see how your personal values and interests connect to social causes and learn how to engage with the organization through their initiatives and community efforts. The class will be composed of case studies, self-reflection, guest speakers, and classroom activities. Students will work on a personalized plan on how they can turn their passions and interests into action.
SIA’s Commitment to Experiential Learning
As students step away from their regular schedules and into these focused experiences, MTerm becomes more than just a week of coursework. It is a chance to collaborate, create, reflect, and connect learning to personal passions and future aspirations.
MTerm reflects Staten Island Academy’s commitment to experiential learning by empowering students to pursue ideas that inspire them while building skills and perspectives that will stay with them long after the week concludes.
