One TITANIC Field Trip!

You LOVE them! You HATE them! What is "them" you might ask? FIELD TRIPS! I wonder how many field trips I have been on in my 33 years of teaching! Some memorable, some quite forgettable. Today's field trip is definitely in the memorable column.



There is always so much to see and do at the Great Lakes Science Center. The hands-on science activities can't be beat. Not only are they fun, they are educational. I loved listening to my kiddos really try to figure out why something worked! 
Most of my sixers have been to the Science Center several times before. However, NONE of them had been to the special exhibit about the Titanic at which there were several hundred artifacts from the ship on display. They were SOOOOOO excited to go to this exhibition! Who didn't sleep the night before, who woke up really early? I chuckled at their comments and behavior! 
Unfortunately, we were unable to take photos within the exhibit itself. However, we all received a replica of the original boarding pass. 

On the back of the pass was a short biography of a passenger. 

I had the pass of a rather colorful character, a French model who was the paramour of the married man who was filming the ship's maiden voyage... sigh! My sixers had fun with this one all day. LOL! At the end of the exhibition, you were instructed to search the survivors' roster for your name. Alas, I did not survive the tragedy! Luckily, I survived the field trip! 
What made this trip so successful was that my sixers had read a fictional book about the tragedy and had done a LOT of research about the topic (Thanks to Jessica from Joy in the Journey for her great Titanic research unit and to Becky from Thrifty Third Grade for her book unit). We had viewed numerous video clips and had even learned a song about it! They could make considerable connections to the material they were seeing! The two docents who supervised our visit were incredulous at my kids' knowledge and excitement level. Both of them stated, unbeknownst to each other, that my class was so different than any other that they had seen in the exhibit, so into it,  and let me tell you: there have been hundreds at this exhibit in the past six months. I was VERY proud of them!
I can't wait to do a couple of follow-up items with my sixers tomorrow. We will write thank you cards to our two chaperones (who also had a terrific time) and letters to the Great Lakes Science Center recalling our experience and detailing what we liked and what we learned. We'll send our letters along with a copy of our video to the museum so they have feedback to help them do future planning.
Speaking of future planning... I am working on the next field trip for this group of sixers! They are just tooooo much fun to not take on another trip.
Happy Teaching, Angela The Teacher's Desk 6