Field Trips

Field Trips

The first Field Trip I took was to the Columbus Zoo when I was in Nursery School at Pioneer Joint Vocational School in 1980.  During my 1^st and 2^ndGrade years at Whitney Elementary in Shelby, Ohio, I took trips to the Shelby Historical Museum and the Shelby Fire Department.

I returned to the Columbus Zoo in 1984 with my Second Grade Class. My Mom was a chaperon and our group consisted of me, Shelly Brown, Matt Brown and Matt Stumbo.  We enjoyed seeing a lot of animals including wild cats, lions, tigers, gorillas and horses.

I do not remember for sure where we went for my 3^rd Grade Trip, but I am thinking that was the year we got to tour the Shelby Power Plant.  It was full of metal catwalks and generators fueled by coal.  Shelby was one of the few small towns in Ohio to generate its own power.  Most cites and towns are part of a larger power company these days.  though.

For the 4^th Grade Field Trip we went to the Columbus Historical Museum. That must have been during the Spring of 1986.  Though I am sure there were many wonderful sites, all I really remember is being fascinated by the Egyptian Mummy on display.  I also saw the flags of all the world’s nations and displays on the American Southwest and South America.

Most memorable was the Ohio Historical Village, which was behind the museum.  The Village is a replica of what a typical Town Seat Village would have looked like during the middle of the 19^th Century or the Civil War Era. It was fun to visit the old fashioned school house, apothecary and general store among other sites.

I believe it was my 5^th Grade year that we went to the Health and Science Museum.  I think it was the one in Cleveland.  There I got a chance to see blood vessels, slices of a brain, preserved lungs and a skull.  It was a very interesting trip

My 6^th Grade year we took a 3 Day trip to the Akron and Youngstown Area.  We did that in May of 1988.  We stayed at a Y Summer Camp and took the bus the Zoar Village, The Football Hall of Fame and the McKinley Monument, as well as the Wurther Train Model Train Museum.

The Zoar Village was particularly interesting.  It was founded by the German religious dissenters called the Society of Separatists of Zoar in 1817 as a communal society, Zoar today is an island of Old-World charm in east-central Ohio. Many of the German-style structures built by the Zoarites have been restored and are open to the public as Zoar Village State Memorial. Others are privately-owned, and serve as residences, shops, restaurants and bed and breakfast inns.

We visited the ten restored buildings (Number One House, Kitchen/Magazine Complex, Garden House, Bakery, Tinshop, Dairy, Wagon Shop, Blacksmith Shop and Zoar Store), which are staffed with costumed interpreters and furnished with items made or used by the Separatists.

My favorite part of the trip was sitting around the campfire by the lake with my classmates.  It was a beautiful Spring night.

I was a bit homesick while I was away.  It was the longest I’d ever been away from home before.  I didn’t particularly like having to bunk and shower with the other girls, but I manage to get through it all.  The worst part of the trip was the migraine I suffered while I was there.

My 7^th Grade year at Shelby Christian Academy we went to COSI in downtown Columbus.  COSI stands for Center of Science and Industry.  It was interesting as well, but I don’t remember much about it.  They had an electrostatic generator, which was cool.  You could also sit inside a replica of a space shuttle and there was a display of porcelain dolls.

There weren’t really any more field trips after 7^th Grade.  However, in 10^th Grade at Shelby High School, I was apart of a special Environmental Class.  We took a trip to the Shelby Water Treatment Plant.  There we learned about how toxic waste had been dumped in the field behind the Treatment Plant and covered with soil years ago.

In College I went with the Anthropology Club at the Ohio State University at Mansfield to the Cleveland Museum of Art.  It was the winter of 1996 when we went and it was a wonderful experience.  I remembered seeing everything from Egyptian Art to Tapestries.  I was glad I went.

The rest of the trips I took were in North Carolina through the Outdoor Adventures Group from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  You can read about those adventures in previous blog entries!