We need two buses to hold 110 people (100 students and 10 chaperones) and the entrance fee per person to Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen, CA.
This project is exciting because students have already researched Jack London's life and his many adventures, and it has led to an interest in learning more about this intriguing figure first-hand. They are thrilled at the idea of walking in his footsteps at Beauty Ranch!
My students decided that, to fully comprehend this enigmatic author, a trip to his cottage, museum, Wolf House, and surrounding Beauty Ranch would help to reinforce the research they had done on his life and work. As we read Call of the Wild together in class, they are interested in knowing more about the man who wrote this book and about the life experiences that helped shape his work. This field trip will be one component of a project based learning experience centered around Call of the Wild.
One of the skills that this project is helping my students to hone is research. A true historian, they realize, goes to the source. We are learning about the vital importance of primary sources, and the artifacts at the Jack London State Historic Park will serve as primary source material to help them understand this author all the more. Additionally, this project involves a massive teamwork effort -- students worked together to come up with their ideas for a trip, their justification for what will make the trip valuable, and for why the trip will create a closer bond among their classmates.
In Their Own Words
We want to go to the Jack London Museum because we are trying to learn as much as we can about him. We think that learning about Jack London will help us understand his book more. We learned that Jack traveled to Alaska during the Yukon Gold Rush just like Buck does in the novel Call of the Wild. When our table group did our research project we also learned that he is a local author who grew up and lived in our area, which we think is very cool and shows the amazing places you can go in life.
One thing we are going to do to lead in this project is tell all our relatives to donate so that we can go on this trip. We will let them know how this trip will help add to our educations and lead us to learn more about the ways learning about an author's life helps to explain their books and what they meant to say in them. Also we will make sure to create a photo collage when we are done to show everyone our trip and all the things we learned about Jack London!
Our school is awesome and full of great people but in middle school there isn't a lot of funding for field trips! Kids in the middle sometimes get left out! We think this project will show the community that letting middle school kids go on field trips is an important learning opportunity that we need more of! Field trips are not just for elementary school!
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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. Mansour and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.