Interim Week

The Cardin School spends a week between the 2nd and 3rd trimesters engaged in a single-focused experiential and interdisciplinary learning program. Regular classes are suspended so that all members of the community, students and faculty alike, learn together in a manner that crosses disciplines and curricula. This is a time of challenge, creativity, and community building.

Interim Week 2012

"islAM in the AM, PuriM in the PM"
This year is a first for us – two themes: learning about Islam in the mornings, and, because Purim occurs that week, “Purim Pandemonium” in the afternoon (students have already been imagining and writing their competitive schpiels for a production on Shushan Purim, while doing an in-depth study of the Megillah featuring a number of different scholars in our area – and then enjoying the “Hamentaschen Bake-Off”). Interim Week 2012 will be held March 5-9.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Parent letter
Permission Slip
Parent invitation to school events

Topics of past Interim Week programs have included:

Interim Week 2011

"A Capital Week"
In Baltimore we are fortunate that in “our backyard” we have one of the greatest resources ever: the capital of our country, Washington, D.C. Its governmental icons, its monuments, its museums, its tourist destinations – hundreds of thousands come from hundreds of miles (and more) each year, and we can hop on a bus and be there in a little more than a hour. So hop we will! Interim Week 2011 will prove to be a well-traveled and educationally important adventure: from The White House to The Holocaust Museum, from the East Wing of the National Gallery to the Spy Museum, from the Newseum to a session on Capitol Hill, from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument – students will get a taste of what puts the Capital in this great city.

Interim Week 2010

"...BUT WE CAN TELL THE STORY..."
Interim Week 2010 focused on the magic and wonder of storytelling, and celebrated 4 millennia of Jewish stories. Every day, students and guests were brought together to share tales, and to hear stories told in a variety of ways by gifted professional storytellers. Then students were challenged to find ways to tell their own stories – working with local artists, they chose from a variety of modalities in which to express themselves: writing, drama, dance, painting, mosaics, film, song, photography, and woodworking. At the end of the week, a celebration showcased the different accomplishments of all participants.

Interim Week 2009

"MEGILLAH / EVOLUTIO: Unscrolling the Genesis of Life on Earth"
In honor of the bicentennial of the birth of Charles Darwin, MEGILLAH / EVOLUTIO: Unscrolling the Genesis of Life on Earth was an intensive week-long journey through the origins of species on this planet, the convergence and divergence of science and religious thought, the politics of teaching evolution, and the future of life on earth.

Interim Week 2008

"In the Footsteps of Prophets: Heschel, King, and the Civil Rights Journey"
Cardin students were joined by students from Western High School as they traveled south to examine together the struggles of African-Americans to gain equality in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Along the way, they discovered how Jews were involved in the Civil Rights movement, with a focus on the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. The week-long program allowed the students to explore historic sites in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee while engaging in conversations with individuals who were directly involved in the Civil Rights struggle. The students acquired an understanding of why both Jews and African-Americans, as peoples who have known oppression, must act when others are oppressed.

Interim Week 2007

"Six Days Plus Forty Years: The Six-Day War"
The week-long experiential project simulated the Six-Day War from multiple viewpoints using innovative activities. It provided a keen understanding of the causes, events, characteristics, and global consequences of the War – and strengthened our students’ connection with Israel. At Kibbutz Cardin, a communal retreat setting, students re-enacted Israeli life according to a timetable and daily theme that paralleled the corresponding day of the War.

Interim Week 2006

"Space/Time University: Einstein 101"
The Cardin community celebrated the 101st anniversary of Einstein's "miracle year." Students explored different ways of looking at space and time from the vantage points of science/math, philosophy/religion and arts/culture through study, activities and trips to the National Radiometric Astronomy Observatory and New York City. Students participated in an all-school Shabbaton in which sacred time was explored.

Interim Week 2005

"Ultimate Road Trip"
Students researched the lives of Jewish American pioneers and planned a five-day road trip along the East Coast tracing the history of American Jewry. Students and faculty explored the first synagogue in Rhode Island, early Jewish leaders and communities in Philadelphia and Jewish immigration in New York.

Interim Week 2004

"Purim Pandemonium"
Faculty and students together participated in a week of study, drama and games culminating in a school-wide celebration of Purim. Students chose mini-courses centering around the theme of Purim, including conceptions of beauty throughout history, probability in games of chance and the derivations of weird and wacky words. Students ended the week by presenting the megillah story through plays that they had written in troupes and genres assigned by lot.