Thirty-seven students from Grades 6 to 12 in Latin classes at The Pennington School took a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on November 14, 2024, to view the collection of Greek and Roman art. The cost of this trip was defrayed with a grant from the Classical Association of the Atlantic States, Inc. following an application from Latin teacher William Dingee. 

The ongoing closure of the Princeton Art Museum has deprived students in central New Jersey of convenient access to a first-rate collection of artifacts from the ancient Mediterranean world, so this field trip provided an incredible opportunity to experience similar artifacts firsthand. Students who participated in the trip researched an item in the museum’s collection in advance, then gave a brief in-class presentation on the artifact before the trip to the museum.

Once at the museum, students broke into smaller groups for an interactive guided tour of the collection. Nishka Vyas ’26 said, “I felt like I was really able to connect what I had learned in the classroom to a hands-on experience. For example, we did a project in Mr. Secrest’s class on how ancient statues, which we think of as white, had actually been painted. At the museum, we got to see traces of paint on an actual ancient statue.” This type of experiential learning helps bring classroom discussions to life!