Last Friday, Oct. 8, I took my class on our first field trip of the year to Rocky Point Park in Port Moody. This is the third year running that I have organized this field trip for my Grade 4's - partly as an outdoor education activity to study tides, tidal salt marshes, the geography and history of Port Moody (which had its roots at or near the waterfront at Rocky Point) and partly as a team-building exercise. Part of the planning is to take advantage of free bus fare for school students during Walk-to-School Week in early October every year.
The weather forecast was not very positive - rain all day - but the rain held off except for a few sprinkles around lunch-time. So I was very thankful for that. We hiked from the school the 2 kilometers or so to and around the end of the inlet, then continued on to the park. The kids all walked well, nobody got too tired or complained about the hike.
We stopped just before the main part of the park to look at a midden of clam shells that built up for thousands of years; Rocky Point is part of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation traditional territory and they used this area as their summer camp for gathering clams and other seafood. There are also a few bricks left buried in the sand, likely parts of houses that families occupied years ago on what is now public parkland.
When we arrived at the centre of the park, the playground/washroom area, the students were given a sheet of questions - a scavenger hunt where they went in their groups of 3 or 4 to find answers to historical and geographic questions. I had designed the scavenger hunt by studying all the historical plaques and commemmorative signs around the park, mostly on or near the long pier jutting out into Burrard Inlet. The students were distracted from their study of history by several crabs and jelly fish lurking under the pier. Obviously, I didn't want to discourage them from observing these wonders of the ocean environment, but I did hope they would put some energy into collaborating to find answers to the questions. Some did, others didn't.
After lunch, we (2 parent volunteers and I) gathered the students for the team-building exercises. I had strung up a long, thick rope between 2 trees about 5 meters apart, making a type of spider-web. The goal of the exercise was for the students to help each other get through the holes in the spider-web without touching the rope. Well, that didn't work so well; they didn't seem to catch onto the idea of actually physically supporting each other so they could climb through the web. So after 10 minutes of boys running at the web trying to dive through, and almost tearing it down in the process, we tried a different exercise, called the Electric Fence. For this, you tie a long rope straight between 2 trees, say 10-15 meters apart, and again they need to help each other get over the rope without touching it. They seemed to enjoy that much more; they actually succeeded (with some help from a certain 50-something kid) in getting most of them over the rope.
At 2:00, we started preparing to head back to school via the public transit system. It is a fairly long walk to the bus stop (about 4 blocks), but we all made it in one piece. All 29 of us got onto one bus and arrived back at Eagle Ridge just before the dismissal bell. I bet the kids were as tired that night as I was, after 5 hours running around in the fresh air.
I often wish I could extend that field trip to a much longer part of the school year, do much more of our learning outdoors around the neighbourhood. But I guess during the wettest parts of November to February, it's nice to have a roof over our heads and four walls around us to keep out the chill.
(I'll try to post some video of the trip when I get it downloaded and edited.)
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