LEGACY: ENRICHMENT AND EXPOSURE

Augmenting its strength-based, informed approach to academic instruction, the Legacy Foundation’s LEAP program integrates an equally important experiential and cultural education element. The mixture of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math), as well as exposure to educational excursions and cultural history, create a well-balanced learning platform designed to educate the whole child. This comprehensive, instructional and experiential structure helps the Legacy Foundation fulfill its mission of bridging the gap of opportunity for the region’s most challenged students.

We’re going places! Legacy believes that some of the best learning happens outside of the classroom and that exposure is key in creating opportunities. Field trips range from local visits to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and Talcott Mountain to out of state trips including Boston, New York City, Washington, DC, Baltimore, MD, and Atlanta, GA, with a focus on introducing scholars to the best the world has to offer, including museums, colleges, and more.

Legacy’s enrichment and exposure programming capitalizes on its partnerships with industry titans including Turner Construction, Travelers Insurance, Stanley Black & Decker, and Pratt & Whitney to provide hands-on lessons and practical applications to foster student understanding. The STEM curriculum is strengthened through excursions to area museums and aquariums, including the Connecticut Science Museum, the New England Air Museum, and Mystic Aquarium. They also gain first-hand knowledge through activities at the New England Science and Sailing Foundation.

As part of its STEAM initiatives, the foundation also offers exposure to the arts in various forms. Students’ cultural awareness is broadened through experiencing live concerts by the Hartford Symphony Orchestra — with which Legacy has a longstanding partnership — and various plays and performances at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts. Additionally, students learn about historical figures in the African American culture, such as an in-person presentation by members of the Buffalo Soldiers  Motorcycle Club — formed in 1993, in part, to honor the legacy of the black United States Army regiments pivotal in the westward expansion of the United States during the 19th Century.

Providing access to all of these and many other immersive learning opportunities at little to no cost is what helps the Legacy Foundation stand apart. Students are able to gain direct educational and cultural knowledge that goes beyond the traditional classroom model. Through enrichment, the Legacy Foundation strives to ignite imagination and creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and most importantly — a college-going mentality — among its Legacy Scholars.