March 3, 2006

TWO MOORESTOWN FRIENDS TEACHERS TO STUDY IN GHANA, PACIFIC NORTHWEST

MOORESTOWN, NJ – Two Moorestown Friends School Upper School teachers have been awarded school sabbatical grants – one to make a documentary this summer in Ghana and the other to study wildlife, plants and climate in the Pacific Northwest.

Drama Teacher Mark Gornto, a Philadelphia resident who has taught at the school since 2004, will travel to the Ghanaian town of Kumasi, where he will work with University of California/Los Angeles filmmaker Hezekiah Lewis. They will make a documentary short about Yaa Asantewaa, the Ghanaian queen and revolutionary who led an armed revolt against British rule in 1900-1901. Sharing her story will raise awareness about an African culture profoundly affected by the imperialist West, as well as celebrate the triumph of her spirit.

Science Teacher Drew Newman, a Collingswood resident who has taught at the school since 2000, will travel to Oregon and Washington states as well as to the San Juan Islands to study wildlife, plants and climate. This research will help him to develop a body of experiences, samples, pictures and activities to enhance student understanding of evolution, the unifying principle in biology classes.

The two trips will be sponsored by Moorestown Friends School’s Zekavat Family Summer Sabbatical program. The program was established to encourage faculty members to engage in creative and challenging travel and to provide a rejuvenating and educational experience. The program was permanently endowed by the Zekavat family – Moorestown residents Drs. Hassan and Pouran Zekavat, their son, Kenneth, and daughter, Susan Nourbakhsh, both of whom graduated from Moorestown Friends.

Gornto will educate and train a Ghanaian crew to assist with acting, filming, set construction and the recreation of a 1900s African village. He will also scout locations and cast the film using British and Ghanaian actors in Accra (the country’s capital) and Kumasi. Filming is scheduled for August, with pre-editing production to be completed by the end of August.

In addition, Gornto will work with Ghanaian officials on developing the theatre and education portion of a cultural performing arts center on land recently donated for this project.

The Ghanaian film and education project will provide Gornto and the Moorestown Friends community with a link to a rising African culture that values the art and power of storytelling. In addition to supplementing his directing, production and organizational skills, Gornto hopes the experience will lead to new Moorestown Friends School electives such as a course in filmmaking or in African theatre and the arts.

Newman will visit four protected areas -- the Olympic National Forest, Mount Rainier National Park, the San Juan Islands (an archipelago of 17 islands between the U.S. and Canada) and Mount Saint Helens National Monument. They offer natural laboratories featuring varied ecosystems of incredible and unique biodiversity. Previous and potential future volcanic eruptions of Mount Saint Helens are a reminder that the processes that have shaped this region are ongoing.

On the San Juan Islands, Newman will catalog and photograph organisms particularly adapted to marine life in tidal pools. He will seek patterns among vegetation at different climate and altitude zones in the Olympic National Forest, which features six distinct life zones including the only temperate rain forest ecosystem in the continental U.S.

In the park surrounding Mount Saint Helens, the volcano blast zone, natural reforestation areas and man-made monoculture pine forests have generated three distinct ecosystems since 1980. Newman will compare soil samples and rocks with material from the fossil beds and lava formations at Mount Rainier, looking for differences in pH, nematodes and mineral content that can be attributed to the most recent eruption.

Throughout the region, Newman will examine how modern preservation efforts have impacted native cultures and the species on which they rely.

Newman will develop a photographic record and scientific journal of his studies into an online exhibit on the Moorestown Friends School science department’s web site. The outcome of his sojourn ties together the Upper School curricula of science foundations, biology, ecology and environmental science and also relates to the 10th grade American History course. In addition, the material he gathers will form the basis for ongoing studies in “Evolutionary Thought,” an elective Newman will teach next winter.

This is the ninth year of the Zekavat Sabbatical program. Last summer, Quaker educators Lynne Brick and Priscilla Taylor-Williams visited Ireland to develop curriculum that enhances the school’s spiritual and ethical educational program including service learning.  Previous recipients have journeyed to Mallorca, Puerto Rico, France, Australia, China, Japan, California, Turkey and India as well as to the barrier islands of North Carolina, Georgia and the New Jersey shore.