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The students at Penn-Griffin School for the Arts aren’t the only ones who have summer adventures to recount.

Their teachers spent their breaks exploring the Amazonian jungles, hauling a harp into a cave in Scotland and watching, along with students, as celebrating Spaniards set off fireworks in their city streets.

Math teacher Andrew Seligman travelled to Peru, where he went deep into the rainforest, guided by a canopy scientist and an entomologist/photographer.

During his study of the ecosystem, he crossed canopy walkways, which are hanging bridges.

“They look like something out of an Indiana Jones movie but are actually quite sturdy,” Seligman said. “You’re above the mist and see these beautiful birds and butterflies. It’s quite awesome.”

Seligman met and learned about indigenous people who are part of the Yagua Indian tribe. He participated in a traditional dance and learned to use a blowgun. He brought a small gun back, and his Penn-Griffin students have enjoyed sharpening the wooden darts on piranha teeth and aiming for a squirrel target drawn on a cardboard box.

Seligman ate alpaca, guinea pig — and even termites. “And I have the video to prove it,” he said.

He learned that the activities of entrepreneurs eager to exploit the villagers’ timber and mineral wealth are threatening the rainforest and the Indians’ culture.

Seligman also visited Machu Picchu, an ancient Incan site in the Andes mountains, which he described as “awe-inspiring.” He learned about the masonry technique of using blocks shaped as trapezoids instead of rectangles to protect their buildings against earthquake damage — just one example of how Seligman could bring back lessons about both math and culture to the classroom.

Mike Connors, a music teacher and professional harpist, won a scholarship from the Scottish Harp Society of America to travel to Scotland, where he visited seven places that are mentioned in the titles of musical pieces. He recorded videos of himself performing the songs there.

For one piece, he lugged a harp onto an island and into the echo-filled Fingal’s Cave, where he performed “Air by Fingal.” He spent about three hours alone on the island, the waves crashing against the cave.

With his first-person accounts of these settings, Connors hopes to make these songs more meaningful for students.

“It makes it more interesting,” he said. “If it’s just a title, you don’t know anything about it.”

Connors visited castles, battlefields, the Highlands and other locations and was welcomed into pubs for sessions with other musicians.

“It was really cool,” he said. “A really magical place.”

Connors’ blog at www. miketheharper.blogspot.com has the music videos, as well as photos and descriptions of his trip.

Spanish teacher Hector Gomez took four of his students to Spain, where they went sightseeing in Madrid and Barcelona and could follow his classroom advice to “make your universe bigger.”

He pushed them to speak Spanish as much as possible. In the process, he was able to gather ideas for new lessons in class, such as understanding the prompts of an ATM. In some situations, the students knew the phrases and words they needed but couldn’t quite create the sentences.

They also experienced cultural differences. During a celebration of San Pedro, people lit fireworks in the street, and the Penn-Griffin students got nervous.

“I told them, “Sit back, enjoy it,” Gomez said.

Contact Jamie Kennedy Jones at 373-7088 or jamie.kennedy@news-record.com