A field trip
opens up children’s minds to new possibilities and learnings. At Pathways we
continually strive to provide our
students with engaging and exciting field trips which allow them to be an
adventurer, an explorer and a learner. Extending learning beyond classrooms has
its own relevance and we have seen a significant rise in student thinking and
their ability to make connections with what was taught inside the classrooms.
These field
trips are carefully chosen and planned keeping the learning objectives for a
particular age group in mind. In early years, we concentrate on taking children
outdoors for a real life experience.
Our Nursery students went to the Zoo
recently while they were learning about living beings and got pretty excited
about seeing the animals in real- for the first time! For them, the sight of a
rhino or a tiger was so fascinating that they kept talking about how these
animals walked, ran and lived in the ‘jungle’. Similarly, the pre-nursery
tiny-tots visited a vegetable store when they were learning about things we
eat. When we allowed them to pick their own food items that are healthy, we saw
a transformation in all the kids as they applied their learning to fill the
basket- and supported their choice with a
good reason! We have also had our KG students visit farms where the
students got real life experiences of vegetable which grow underground (and the
ones that grow on creepers) and they were allowed to pull them out; wash and
eat!
As we move high
up the grades, our trips become more structured aiming at unit related
learning.
Grade 3 students visited different historical monuments to understand
what monuments are and what they tell us about the past. Their initial ideas
and expressions got transformed as they went for historical walks with
professional groups like Itihaas and Intach. Appreciation of history and the
architecture is what we intend to develop through such excursions. Grade 4
students while learning about Migrants, visited a Tibetan colony in New Delhi
which still nurtures its
tradition and culture. Students interviewed the
migrants and got familiar with their lives, and the struggles they went through
during the migration period and also while resettling in India. This experience
not only enhanced their understanding of what migration and resettlement means,
but also encouraged them to empathize with the people as well as appreciate the
way they have upheld their culture and traditions. Some of the most exciting
trips were planned by our Art teachers when they took the students to the
National Gallery of Modern arts to show them what installations are and how
they depict an artist’s vision and thinking. We also planned a trip to Kiran
Nadar gallery in Noida, where the students were exposed to some very unique
medium of presentations.
Not all the
trips are planned by the teachers! As equal partners, parents have suggested
and organized some very informative and highly engaging field trips for our
students. One such example was Grade 3’s trip to Café Ohio where the students
learned how to make healthy snacks, while inquiring into balanced diet.
Similarly, last year, a parent had invited the Grade 5 students to see the
back-end operations of a five star hotel. This was in conjunction with a unit
on economic activity. There are times when the trip are identified and planned
by the students. For the PYP exhibition this
year, some of the student groups
who were inquiring into how NGOs work, got in touch with different NGOs and
planned a couple of trips focusing on interviewing the managers to learn more
about their organizations. Similarly, the group inquiring into religious
systems also found out that visiting a Gurudwara might help them learn more
about the Sikh religion. Once they experienced success with this trip, they
planned another trip to the Lotus temple to learn about the Baha’i faith as well as to ISCKON to find more about
their belief system. When the students take ownership of their learning, we see
a change in their confidence and attitude towards learning.
We continue to
look for more spaces and places where our children can learn through experience
and exposure. Because this is where the real learning is!
