Every Moment is a Teaching Moment
EXPLO is an international community of students and faculty who value creativity and thinking outside the box. Our culture makes it safe for students to be themselves and to try new things — an experience we design to encourage collaboration, self discovery, and unadulterated fun.
Expert Leadership
The members of our EXPLO leadership team have decades of experience working with children of all ages in school and educational environments. From counseling students' social and emotional development to helping children pursue their academic and extracurricular passions, we are dedicated to working with young people and are experts at educating the whole child.
Similarly, our Curriculum Advisory Committee, which is comprised of talented and experienced people from various academic disciplines and industries, are experts in their fields. Throughout the year, members of the Committee consult with EXPLO to help us generate new course ideas, shape current curriculum, and keep EXPLO on the leading edge of the world of people and ideas.
Lifelong Friendships with Interesting Kids
Just as the courses and choices at EXPLO are tremendously diverse, so too are the students. From more than 40 states and 50 countries, with a wide range of backgrounds, our students are interested in everything from music to genetics, from 3-D art to archeology, from game theory to hip hop dance. They are friendly and warm and are they key to our welcoming and supportive community.
We recently started interviewing many of our 50,000+ alumni, and one of the most amazing things we hear repeatedly — even from people who attended 30 years ago — is: “my closest friends are from EXPLO.”
We Make Learning Fun
The curriculum at EXPLO is unusual: It allows students to investigate subjects they're not likely to encounter during the school year. Our courses aren't for credit and are ungraded. They encourage students to step away from focusing on performance and evaluation, and instead follow their passions and interests.
An EXPLO classroom is lively and active. Students are moving, designing projects, and challenging one another. They might discuss physics principles by riding large hovercrafts around a hockey rink — or firing five-foot-tall trebuchets on a playing field. Improv theater might be used to show how white blood cells fight off a virus. And students in EXPLO Chef cook, plate, and serve a gourmet buffet in a matter of hours. Here, learning is captivating, challenging, and fun.
The Educational Difference
By design, EXPLO hires high-energy, passionate teachers who are involved in all aspects of student life. Often, they're teachers, residential advisors, and coaches all in one, and we mentor them in teaching strategies and curriculum design. It's unusual for young teachers to have access to this active mentoring, but we have the potential to really effect positive change in the teaching profession by infusing it with creative people who have been mentored by master teachers in an supportive and creative environment.
It pays off. Each year, we have an immensely talented and amazing staff ― primarily comprised of college and graduate students ― and our students tell us they are EXPLO's strongest asset. We spend a lot of time finding the right people and then training them in the EXPLO approach to teaching, a dynamic teaching method that connects with what students know and gets them excited about what's to come. If we're able to invigorate students about learning, our hope is that they'll return to school refreshed, with a new enthusiasm for learning that extends to all aspects of their lives — and continues well into their future. In our opinion, there's no greater gift.
The EXPLO Approach
EXPLO is one of the few summer programs in the country with a year-round Curriculum and Teaching Department committed to creating innovative curricula and staying abreast of the latest developments in learning and teaching. Barb Trainor, EXPLO’s Director of Curriculum and Teaching, leads her department, all of the summer faculty, and the organization as a whole, toward a curriculum that calls for actively engaging students and making their experiences with us meaningful and memorable. Our teachers “light a spark” in our students, fueling a fire that encourages them to question, manipulate, and explore new concepts in ways that facilitate true learning.
With this approach, students feel comfortable taking ownership of what (and how) they're learning, and are excited to apply it to new situations. These teaching and learning methods are integral to everything we do: our Curriculum and Teaching Department is constantly working with teachers to hone their lesson plans develop the teaching tools and skills they need to bring students to a place of self discovery.
