One of the precepts on which Dawson was originally founded was “Love of the Land,” and while that may take different forms today than it did at the school’s inception, it is no less foundational to our mission and our vision for our students. Dawson is committed to engaging students to use their minds and bodies as they learn about the world around them through direct experience and reflection. They travel, investigate, and come to fully appreciate countless aspects of nature, culture, history, science, language, and more.
It begins in kindergarten with regular field trips, progresses to overnight trips and then to week-long class trips in Middle and Upper School. An overnight Lower School excursion might be to the Denver Zoo where students use night-vision goggles to observe animals in the dark, or to the Plains Conservation Center, where they spend two days living as Native Americans and pioneers did years ago.
Our Winterim program is a week when students engage in special thematic learning programs, both on and away from campus, depending on grade level. By seventh grade, a student’s Winterim experience might well take place outside of the country.
These experiences are a key way that Dawson fulfills the vision it has for its students: that our graduates are young men and women who achieve their individual potential, savor life, and meet the challenges of the world.