New Orleans

New Orleans is a city where history lives loudly—in music, food, language, and ritual. Shaped by African, Caribbean, French, and Indigenous influences, the city offers students a powerful lens into how culture emerges from struggle, creativity, and collective memory. From jazz halls and neighborhood museums to wetlands and kitchens, students explore how communities respond to environmental threat, systemic injustice, and displacement through art, activism, and deep-rooted tradition.

Learning through the SDGs

Click an SDG below to see examples of how select SDGs are explored on our programs.

10
Reduced Inequalities

In New Orleans, students examine how race, class, and power have shaped access to housing, education, and opportunity. Through engagement with African American history, civil rights sites, and community narratives, learners explore how inequality is structured, and how communities organize, create, and advocate for change.

11
Sustainable Cities and Communities

New Orleans offers a compelling case study in urban resilience. Students investigate how geography, infrastructure, and policy intersect in a city shaped by flooding, hurricanes, and environmental vulnerability. Programming explores how communities preserve culture, adapt to climate realities, and imagine sustainable futures.

13
Climate Action

Positioned below sea level and exposed to intensifying storms, New Orleans highlights the human dimensions of climate change. Students explore coastal erosion, wetland loss, and hurricane response while examining how local knowledge, policy decisions, and community action contribute to climate adaptation and resilience.

Rhythms of Resilience

In New Orleans, culture is not ornamental, it is a response to oppression, displacement, and survival. Students explore how music, food, language, and ritual have preserved identity in the face of enslavement, segregation, and environmental threat. Along the way, they examine how culture supports resilience, strengthens community bonds, and serves as a living strategy for responding to ongoing environmental and social challenges in the city today.

Sample itinerary

At Insight, our programs are designed to reflect the unique interests, goals, and needs of your students. Each itinerary is thoughtfully customized in collaboration with schools, ensuring meaningful alignment with your learning objectives.

Arrive in New Orleans and meet your Insight facilitator. Gather for a shared meal and program overview focused on community agreements and the themes of history, inequality, and cultural expression.

Explore the roots of New Orleans through a guided walking experience led by a local storyteller, moving through Congo Square, Tremé, and historic neighborhoods shaped by African and Creole traditions. Pause for beignets and café au lait at a local institution while discussing how food becomes cultural memory.

Travel outside the city to Whitney Plantation for a guided experience centered on the lives and voices of enslaved people. Return to New Orleans to explore large-scale contemporary art addressing racial justice and liberation, followed by a hands-on creative workshop where students respond through visual expression and dialogue.

Spend the morning in the Lower Ninth Ward, engaging with a community museum and grassroots organization working at the intersection of environmental justice, food access, and disaster recovery. Participate in a hands-on wetlands or neighborhood restoration activity.

Later, join a cooking class led by a local chef to prepare Creole dishes, examining how food reflects migration, survival, and cultural continuity.

Take part in a hands-on music workshop focused on the roots of jazz and blues, collaborating with local musicians to explore rhythm, storytelling, and improvisation. Continue to the New Orleans Jazz Museum to trace how music carries history across generations.

In the evening, experience live jazz at an iconic venue, connecting music to history, resistance, and collective joy.

Travel to Cajun Country to explore how landscape shapes culture. Participate in a guided cultural village experience, including a beignet demonstration, traditional dance workshop, and storytelling that connects language, food, and music to rural life. 

Later, take a guided swamp or bayou tour to examine ecosystems, biodiversity, and climate vulnerability.

Return to New Orleans. Gather for a closing reflection, connecting themes of culture, resilience, and responsibility before beginning the journey home.

Highlights

Culture as Resistance

Explore music, food, and storytelling as tools for preserving identity and challenging inequality.

Living History

Engage with slavery, civil rights, and activism as lived and ongoing histories embedded in place.

Hands-On Learning

Participate in experiential workshops that center embodied, creative, and community-based learning.

What’s included

  • All accommodations
  • All meals and water
  • All programs activities and experiences
  • All teacher chaperone costs at an 8:1 ratio
  • Comprehensive travel insurance (medical, travel and cancellation)
  • Curriculum units to accompany program themes
  • Global and locally-based facilitators
  • Pre-program orientations and post-program debriefing

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