We need a bus to transport students to Washington D.C. from Paterson, New Jersey for a STEM enrichment field trip.
$3,618 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
As a teacher in an urban school district it pains me to see that some of my students cannot experience opportunities because they are economically stricken. I would love my students to be able to share an experience in Washington D.C. I feel that this will have a significant impact on them.
The development of this idea started with an interdisciplinary lesson between my class, English, and one of my co-workers in History. My students were intrigued by the Holocaust after reading a short essay about the Holocaust. My students also revisited the Holocaust in their World History class. After doing virtual field trips to the concentration camps, the students were persistently inquisitive about having a hands-on experience.
My school also centers around Earth and Space Science. Washington D.C. is filled with a plethora of museums in this topic as well. The students then asked us if we could incorporate our school’s theme into our trip to really enrich their minds. I did more research and came across the Smithsonian Institution. We told the students about all the opportunities, experiences, museums, etc. in Washington D.C. and their faces lit up with excitement. They have been relentless in their pursuit to be able to travel to the many museums and the city itself.
My students would thrive both on an academic and social-emotional standpoint. Firstly, in terms of academics the students would be able to research more about the themes that they were questioning after lessons in both my class and the history teacher’s class. The students would be able to experience more in-depth on this topic. This trip would allow the students to experience the topic from a more personal point of view and enable students to visually, verbally, and kinesthetically, comprehend the many questions that they want to find the answers to based on the experience.
Having the students go to Washington with a list of questions in their hand enables them to research and meta-cognitively think about what they want to learn and achieve at the end of the field trip. Additionally, a social emotional skill that the students will foster will be showing empathy for others; especially in the Holocaust museum. Also, they will foster positive team goals while exploring the museums.
In Their Own Words
We are a small school in Paterson, New Jersey. Our class would like to travel to Washington D.C. to experience the Holocaust Museum and the Air and Space Museum. Recently our class has been reading many stories about the Holocaust, in multiple subjects, and we would like to connect what we have learned to the visuals of what the museum has to offer. Also, being a STEM school we would like to see the Air and Space Museum and learn more since our school focuses on earth and space science.
Our class read a short article entitled “No News from Auschwitz” by R.M. Rosenthal. We felt sad and moved by the article and have grown curious to learn more about the Holocaust. Unfortunately, traveling to another country, to see the actual concentration camp of Auschwitz would not be possible so, seeing the museum would enable us to personally connect and interact with the museum exhibits. We would have a better understanding of the atrocities that occurred in our history.
In addition, our school centers around earth and space science. We would like to visit the Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. as well. Our school, and NASA Together For Higher Expectations and Results, is a leader in STEM integration in every classroom. We would like to visit the Air and Space Museum because we would like to continue to extend our research and knowledge in the areas of STEM. It would be a good experience, and an innovative way to teach others what we learn.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Keehner and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
