Educational Approach

The Field Academy offers students the opportunity to engage the United States as their classroom and its diverse people and places as their textbook.

A New Generation
Our mission is rooted in our firm belief that the United States needs a new generation of citizens: citizens who have traveled throughout the United States, who have participated in strong, sustainable communities, who have experienced enduring and perpetuated learning, and who are determined to be agents of change in their own lives and in the world.

Academics
Each of our student trips includes core academic classes - U.S. history, English, natural science, civics, art - plus a leadership curriculum.  We think of these core classes as anchors to the multifaceted, interdisciplinary experiences that students encounter through travel.  The disciplines are there to serve students' understanding of these experiences, not the other way around.

Our Classes
Our classes are small.  Each summer expedition has been between nine and fifteen students and four educators.  Our goal is to create a learning environment that gives students real responsibility for their education, an environment that balances the exultation of adventure with a deep quest for complexity and offers students the chance to pursue their own ideas and passions.

Our Goals
When students come to the Field Academy, they become part of something new and different.  They become part of a generation of citizens who have been to New York City and Ames, Iowa, and who have talked to survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and to Native Americans on reservations in South Dakota; who have seen the canyons of Utah and the changing leaves of Maine; who have listened carefully to the opinions of conservatives, liberals, libertarians, and evangelists, and who have consciously formed their own systems of belief; who are equally knowledgeable about localized sustainable agriculture and the global economy, about the physics of wind energy and the innovations of American literature; who have critically explored the question, “What does it mean to be American?”

Visit our Student Expeditions page to see examples of academic classes at the Field Academy.