Student field trip heads to Santa Fe
Since 2004, the Southern Ute Indian Montessori Academy’s (SUIMA) overnight field trips have been a big thing that upper elementary students look forward to as an accomplishment. This year the upper elementary class had the special opportunity to revive the end of the year trip as a celebration to end their school year.
“It was suggested by Mari Jo to bring the overnight trips back. It helps the students with their Practical Life learning along with having fun. It’s also a great incentive for our students during the year,” SUIMA’s upper elementary teacher, Mae Yazzie-Pino said.
Yazzie-Pino let her students know that an end of the year trip was a possibility, but they had to start doing fundraisers to raise around five thousand dollars. A total of seven fundraisers ranging from coffee sales, bake sales and candy cane sales were held in the Hall of Warriors in the Leonard C. Burch building, as well as the SUIMA infant area and outside the cafeteria building.
Students were able to learn important life skills, such as dealing with responsibility and handling money while working the fundraising events.
“They weren’t [excited] at first because it does have a lot of work and planning involved, but once they started to see growth within our fundraising, they then started to get more excited,” Yazzie-Pino said.
Why Santa Fe?
Santa Fe, N.M. was chosen as the destination due to it being of the biggest promoter of arts and Native American culture in the Four Corners region. Most of the students in the classroom are interested in art and wanted to learn more about traditional and contemporary Indigenous art while also getting a chance to visit the famous Meow Wolf interactive art museum.
“We wanted to get our students out of town to see something new,” Yazzie-Pino said. “We also wanted to get the students to see other cultures and art from neighboring tribes. With Santa Fe being one of the biggest art filled cities, we thought it was interesting to show the students that there are many Native American artists based out of Santa Fe and IAIA in hopes for them to one day take their art interests-skills further than high school.”
The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land grant college in Santa Fe, which several Southern Ute tribal members have attended. Students were able to see the campus and learn more about what programs are offered at the collegiate level.
“We had a few students who enjoyed touring IAIA college campus and seeing many different types of arts,” Yazzie-Pino explained. “We also had a couple who enjoyed the museum and seeing historical artifacts.” Students also received a tour of Museum of Indian Arts and Culture which exhibits traditional arts and regalia from numerous Indigenous tribes within the Southwest.
When asked if the school was going to keep the end of the year-overnight trips going, Mae Yazzie-Pino said, “We are hoping for it to happen yearly, so we can adventure to new places and see new things, but at the moment we aren’t too sure what the future entails.”
“Our class would like to thank everyone who was a part of our achievement and attended the trip with us. We would also like to thank everyone who helped make our trip happen by supporting our fundraisers; we couldn’t have done it without you. Tuvuchutoghoyaqach!”