Tag Archives: field trips

A Pandemic Field Trip

We want what we don’t have. At least I do.

I’m craving travel, exploration, connection, shared experiences, the opportunity to get out of the rut of the ordinary. So are my students.

Living and teaching during a pandemic is no picnic. But all of you know that. Uncertainty and change are the only constants…along with masks, hand washing, and physical distancing.

After three weeks of distance learning, my students came back to school last week. Sort of. Part time. I love, love, love having my students in the classroom again. But…

I have half of them at a time. One shift in the morning and a second shift in the afternoon after the janitorial staff comes in and disinfects the classroom. The AM group works independently in the afternoon from home, the PM group does the same in the morning before they come to school. And I am exhausted trying to keep up!

In spite of this hybrid schedule, I want students to have a rich and meaningful learning experience each and every day. I want them to think deeply and for curiosity to be an insatiable itch that only more reading, writing, observation, and investigation begins to scratch. I love to combine rich content with opportunities to explore, create, and connect. Science is often my go-to.

With the Pacific Ocean outside our door and plant and animal adaptations on our list of science standards, it makes all kinds of sense to study our local kelp forest. Macrocystis Pyrifera has become the basis of our study, the algae on which we build our knowledge.

We’ve done some reading, watched a video, and looked at some photos. Most years we head down to the beach and take a close up look or a parent heads in with a bucket full of these amber jewels. But not in coronavirus times.

So what could I do to breathe some life and variety into the learning in this hybrid classroom? What could I do to energize my own planning and teaching?

I decided on a field trip. Wait…the virus, the pandemic. I’m not even allowed to have all my students in the classroom at the same time!

Virtual field trip to the rescue.

My students don’t come to school on Wednesdays. I host a morning Zoom meeting with the entire class and then set them off to work independently for our minimum day. But this week, Wednesday became our field trip day.

I remembered that the Monterey Bay Aquarium had live cams and a huge kelp forest tank, so I headed to their website to see what kinds of opportunities might exist for my students. I uncovered a wealth of resources! This is a place I had always wished I could take my students to visit, but it is halfway up the state…well out of reach of a field trip even in the best of years!

So how would I organize this virtual field trip so my 8 and 9 year old students could access these resources independently? After some trial and error, I decided to create a slide deck to guide them through a variety of activities. I assigned some specific activities and offered choices for others. And to slow them down and encourage close observation and focused attention, I provided a paper packet for note taking…with a reminder that we will use these in class next week.

I know I was more excited about this virtual field trip than they were–there was great disappointment when they learned we weren’t actually going anywhere! But first indications suggest they did have fun…and learn some things. I’ll know more on Monday!

In the meantime, maybe you are in need of a field trip and an immersion into in the kelp forest. Here’s a link to my slide deck.

So, I didn’t get to travel…but I did get to explore and dig myself out of my usual lesson planning routine. I watched sea otters frolic, jellies undulate, and giant kelp sway. And I’m plotting how to put my students’ new found knowledge about the kelp forest ecosystem to creative use in the classroom next week.

I’m also already thinking about that next virtual field trip. Where should we go? What should we study? If you have great ideas about places with a variety of resources, I’d love to hear all about them!

Sometimes Process is the Product

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It was quiet when I arrived, the coffee maker was percolating, the snake stretching up to explore its glassed-in space, and the empty exhibits waiting to be filled with the curiosity of children. There’s something magical about an empty museum…an experience I have come to love through our Intersections work, a partnership between the San Diego Area Writing Project, the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, and the San Diego Natural History Museum (the NAT). We, classroom teachers and museums educators, have been learning and working together throughout this school year to improve the field trip experience for students, and to explore the relationships between science and writing. And yesterday was our second field trip pilot, an opportunity to observe students, their teacher, and chaperones in action as they implemented the tools we developed to support the experience. These tools: a chaperone orientation video, exhibit guides, and questions to invite student inquiry; a hands-free field kit, question card, and exhibit booklet for students; and all the experiences the teacher–one of our participants–had through our year together, were meant to support student inquiry and encourage exploration. They were meant to support the parent volunteers/chaperones, helping them to facilitate student-driven conversations about their observations. And in many ways, these tools did help to support these goals.

Student Field Bag…(Don’t you love the sparkly pink leggings?)

My favorite part of the field trip happened at the very beginning when students were treated to a behind-the-scenes tour of the Nature to You loan library at the NAT, a room filled with taxidermy animals, insect specimens, and a geologic collection that are available for teachers to check out and take to their classrooms. As we piled into the small space lined with glass cases of bobcats, birds, bats, possums, insects, and more, you could feel the energy. Students spontaneously began asking questions, “Are they real?” “Are they alive?” “How did they die?” After a brief explanation that in fact, all these animals are real, but no longer alive…and that they either died of natural causes or were found dead and then preserved through taxidermy, students were invited to explore the collection and to consider which animals they might like to have visit their classroom. The children and their chaperones spread throughout the room, eager to uncover the treasures within. Student knelt down and bent in close to the glass, carefully observing the animals of interest. They told stories of animals they recognized…and their adult chaperones also told stories and pointed out animals of interest. Everyone seemed to find favorites and called their friends over to see their finds. This little girl was fascinated by the butterflies and desperately wanted this specimen to come to her classroom. She asked if she could make a list of animals she wanted to bring back to school…and of course, she was encouraged to do so. Students spontaneously took paper out of the field bags and used all available surfaces: shelfs, carts, the floor… to write lists and other information they wanted to remember about these animals. As they exited from the loan library, students gathered into their small groups and headed off to the museum exhibits. They were free to explore in whatever order they decided, and our team of educator-researchers followed along, taking notes, listening in on conversations, documenting the museum experience. We noted the places where students lingered, where they seemed eager to spend more time and explore, and captured their questions and conversations where we could. I found myself interested in the structures and spaces of the museum, thinking about the strategic placement of benches and stools and the height of information boards. I loved watching students at this chalkboard that invited students to draw skulls that they had observed throughout the exhibit. And I noticed students sketching and writing in their booklets–a space intended to invite student observations and deepen their thinking. Unfortunately, in many cases students and chaperones seemed to view the booklet as a duty, often filling in spaces as quickly as possible with little thought and attention. I did notice a student or two take some time…this little guy made himself quite comfortable in the middle of the floor, as he sketched and completed a page in his booklet. Before lunch, students had the opportunity to get close to a couple of snakes…and even touch them. They moved in close, asking questions of the the docent as they reached toward the snakes. After lunch, students headed off to the Fleet with the researchers in tow. We continued our documentation and observations. As the field trip wound to an end, the educator-researchers gathered in a conference room to debrief the process. Reviewing our notes, we thought about the positives of the field trip experience and the places we still felt a need for change and improvement. And then we gathered in groups and discussed our observations. The conversations were rich and dynamic, noting the places where we observed students engaged and inspired and still finding missed opportunities for students to be self-directed and to delve more deeply into the questions the exhibits provoked. This process of designing field trip tools, testing them in an authentic field trip experience, and then reflecting on the implications of our observations in order to iterate and innovate has been a powerful one. And while there has been frustration in our group that we haven’t yet produced a product that captures the depth and intensity of our work together, we have learned a tremendous amount and come to some startling ahas about the intersections of informal and formal learning opportunities. As much as we’ve tried to support chaperones to facilitate inquiry, the reality is many of our well-intended parent volunteers are not prepared for that role…and our “crash course” in juicy and probing questions isn’t enough to make them feel comfortable and confident in that capacity. Mostly, they do just what we asked them to do, they keep track of students, redirect them when needed, and deal with the safety and personal well-being needs that come with groups of children. So, we are rethinking our tools…again. And maybe we will never have the perfect product we wish for…and then again, maybe this process is the product we are searching for, an occasion to really see students in action and consider the roles we might play in supporting their curiosity, deepening their learning opportunities, and opening up time and place for playful exploration and inspiration both inside the classroom and in those wonderful spaces beyond the classroom walls.

At the Intersection

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What do you find at the intersection of science and writing? In my experience that’s a place filled with energy, inquiry, and amazingly devoted educators!

This morning, early on a Saturday, I had the pleasure of working with a group of educators (half who are public school teachers, half who are museum educators) creating tools to improve the field trip experience for students. (Here’s an earlier post.)

What’s wrong with field trips…you might ask. You may have fond memories of setting out in a bus as a student and exploring some museum, enjoying a day off from school in the name of learning. And for some students, I am confident that is the case. It could be that the field trip even stimulated a life-long passion for natural history or science or art…

But all too often, field trips become either a day where the teacher doesn’t have to teach and students are “enriched” but not necessarily learning, or a day of frustration for teachers, chaperones, and museum staff–spent managing student behavior rather than stimulating curiosity and interest in natural history, science, or art.

So…on Saturday mornings this school year, we’ve been learning together. Thinking about science and writing and inquiry and motivation. Asking and answering open-ended questions and considering all the different ways we and our students learn.

We’ve spent time in the science and natural history museums exploring the exhibits, observing, writing, and thinking. We’ve read articles and searched for resources. We’ve examined what other museums have done and looked at our own local resources. All that in preparation for creating a “toolbox” of sorts for use with field trips. This toolbox has tools for teachers, tools for students, tools for chaperones. This morning was spent developing these tools in preparation for our first opportunity to test them. Later this week we will be seeing how these resources work with students, teachers, and chaperones on a field trip to two museums.

And what I know for sure is that the process of thinking about and creating these tools will improve field trips for students touched by the educators in the room this morning.

The bigger and much harder to answer question is, how do we take our experiences and learning and share them with those who have not been part of our process? Can we translate our passion, interests and expertise into a “toolbox” that will help others? And how do we make sure that the tools we create are user-friendly and help to shape inquiry-based learning for students?

I feel confident that our learning will happen in the intersections. The intersections of our tools and the students, of schools and museums, and of writing and science. It’s in the intersections of powerful ideas and perspectives that the energy and inquiry lives.