All Day Courses

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Art on the Run
Min/Max Enrollment: 12 to 15 students
Cost: $160 to $175
Jeannie de Vries, Joy Crisman and Richard Cushman
All Day
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This full-day course offers travel, art and food to the lucky few. Our idea is to visit the Bay Area’s best museums to look closely at a few pieces of art. We’ll sit before the “Gates of Hell” at Stanford and contemplate “The Thinker” at the Palace of the Legion of Honor. Over a scrumptious mid-day meal, we will share our impressions. Join us for what promises to be a most enjoyable week.

American Cine-mania!
Min/Max Enrollment: 15 to 20 students
Cost: $50
Kate Kordich and Julie Anderson
All Day
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What’s so great about great American movies?  In this class, you’ll find out.  We’ll focus on the styles of American directors such as Billy Wilder, Frank Capra, and Martin Scorsese.  Two class days will be devoted to the quintessentially American film genres of the Western and the gangster movie.  Other days will explore how American ideas—about gender and individualism—have been projected onto the big screen.  Some films we will study include Citizen Kane, High Noon, Good Fellas, and Little Miss Sunshine.

Bikes from Berkeley to Botswana (by way of Bolinas)
Min/Max Enrollment: 10 to 21 students
Cost: $75 to $100
Preston Tucker, Larissa Parson, and Jonna Smyth
All Day
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This class will have three components:

1.    We will raise money to support a project led by Mike's Bikes in Berkeley to get refurbished bikes to Botswana.  Our fund-raising efforts will help pay for the transportation, re-assembly, distribution, and long-term maintenance of the bikes. We'll raise money by seeking pledge sponsorships for bike commuting.

2.    We'll help Mike's Bikes refurbish their stock of second-hand bikes for distribution in Botswana. As we contribute to their effort, we'll also develop skills in bike maintenance and repair.

3.    Finally, we'll go on an overnight camping trip. From our tranquil campsite, we'll set out on road and/or mountain biking trips. There will be different trips to accommodate different levels of skill and exertion.

A goal of this course is to build a community of cyclists across continents and skill levels.  You do not need to own a bike to participate, but you should know how to ride a bike.

Growing Local, Growing Hope: Urban Food Systems
Min/Max Enrollment: 7 to 15 students
Cost: $150 to $200
Daria Wrubel, Alison Doernberg, and Megan Chen
All Day
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Think farming is a purely rural activity, confined to places where cows outnumber people? Think again… 80% of the world’s population lives in cities, and urban areas are increasingly answering the call for sustainable, local food, and vibrant, growing communities. We will visit several local organizations that have found creative ways to farm in the urban environment and are helping make healthy food accessible to everyone. Possible sites include: People’s Grocery, Spiral Gardens, Berkeley Youth Alternatives, City Slicker Farms, and local community gardens and farmers’ markets. Come prepared to get your hands dirty, learn more about how urban communities can build healthier local food systems, and sample some of the delicious food grown right here in the Bay Area! This trip will include one overnight visit to Pie Ranch, near Half Moon Bay, on Friday night, returning late Saturday afternoon.

How to Record an Album (or, how to be a big shot recording mogul)
Min/Max Enrollment: 2 to 6 students
Cost: $70 to $90
Adam Gonsalves
All Day
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Think about your favorite record.  Have you ever wondered how that album was produced?  It's not alchemy or black magic, and you can be a part of an audio engineering operation.  We'll be learning about the recording process by going into a studio and doing actual recordings. 

Yes, we'll be conducting a live session with real gear! 

You'll develop skills and knowledge in the physical aspects of sound, sound level measurement, introduction to microphone techniques & selection, basic psychoacoustics, effects routing, principles and practice of magnetic recording (Analog) and modern workstation platforms (Digital).  Take a recording from inception to completion through tracking, mixing, & mastering.  Come into the studio where art and science intersect to help make the songs people love.  If you're a musician, or just a fan of music, this is totally for you.

Let’s Go Shoot Digital
Min/Max Enrollment: 5 to 8 students
Cost: $75-$110
Gretchen Garlinghouse
All Day
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Join us on a digital photo safari to capture the incredible beauty and variety of the Bay Area. Each day we'll spend the mornings going to different sites (to be chosen by the group but may include the Golden Gate Bridge and Fort Point, the Sutro Bath ruins, San Francisco Chinatown and North Beach, Strawberry Canyon Botanical Gardens, Mount Diablo State Park, etc.) to take photographs, share a picnic lunch on location, then return to school to review the images we've captured to choose the best to print and exhibit. This course is recommended for those who have photographic experience (film or digital) as it will be a field trip class, not an introduction to photography. Grab your camera - let's go shoot!

We All Scream: The History, Art, Science, and Enjoyment of Ice Cream
Min/Max Enrollment: 18 students
Cost: $225 to $275
Lexy Green & Shuna Fish Lydon
All Day
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Learn about the history of ice cream, from its Asian origins to its status as the quintessential modern, American dessert.  Visit ice cream making operations ranging from Marco Polo with its Asian flavored gelato to the one man, hand churned Nieves de Cinco de Mayo in the Fruitvale Public Market. Try ice creams and related frozen desserts from different cultures, including Kulfi, Gelato, Faloodeh, Halo Halo, and even savory ice cream.  Using a variety of resources, from readings and film to demonstrations and hands-on ice cream making, learn about the chemistry of making ice cream.  Take an ice cream making class with pastry chef extraordinaire Shuna Fish Lydon (formerly of The French Laundry and Citizen Cake).  Each student will receive a small ice cream maker to keep.

At the end of this class, you’ll know the answers to questions like:
•    What is the difference between ice cream and Gelato?
•    What is the difference between ice milk, premium, and super premium ice cream?
•    What causes those pesky ice crystals to form in your formerly smooth ice cream?
And most important of all for the Bay Area Ice Cream freak:
•    Do you prefer the ice cream at Sketch, Ici, or Bi-Rite Creamery, and why?

Wordscapes: Creative Wandering and Writing
Min/Max Enrollment: 8 to 12 students
Cost: $40 to $50
John Faggi and Nancy Steele
All Day
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We will use a variety of prompts and excursions to exercise our creative writing muscles: people watching and eavesdropping; cafe slumming; wild and wooly walking; stalking local writers' haunts (e.g., North Beach, hangout of the Beat Poets); catching a flick or two. We will write sketches of landscapes, seascapes, peoplescapes, mindscapes, escapes. We will improvise, scrutinize, cannibalize one another's work - cavort in prose and poetry until we drop. And hopefully, we will publish a collection of our work  (check out past years' anthologies: To Dance with an Ape's Delirium for Bananas and Insurance against Disappearing).