feature stories
Let the city be your classroom!
Aug 13, 2009 3:50 PM
New York City teachers have the advantage of a world-class city available outside the walls of their school building, one that is filled with cultural treasures to extend and enhance any lesson.
What better way to open students’ minds than to expose them to cultural gems like museums, special exhibitions — or even the NY Skyride, a virtual tour simulator that “takes off” from the Empire State Building and “flies” over 30 famous New York sights.
There is something to spark the interest of learners of all ages, whether it’s art, music, theater, science, the Staten Island Zoo or the chance to really work it out at the Sports Center at Chelsea Piers.
Many institutions that invite class trips gear their curriculum to state mandates and offer pre- and post-visit lesson plans so students get the most out of the trip.
For some students, it will be their first exposure to the cultural bounty of New York City. It’s a surefire way to enrich your classroom teaching with memorable hands-on experience that enhances learning.
There are resources here for teachers, too, including Teacher’s Choice Plus and Teacher’s Stuff, where your dollars go further when it comes to an array of materials from arts and crafts to games, puzzles, educational manipulatives, stickers, workbooks and other classroom needs.
A special section on class trips will be featured in the Oct. 1 issue of the New York Teacher. If you are a teacher who has enjoyed class trips with your students, why not share the experience with colleagues? Please e-mail your stories, advice, recommendations and warnings to dcallaci@uft.org.
Get your boarding pass for the ‘Titanic’
All aboard the “Titanic”! He’s ready for his journey to the past.
Almost a hundred years after its doomed maiden voyage from England, the “Titanic” has at last arrived in New York City.
Or rather pieces of it have arrived, such as the enormous davit arm used to lower lifeboats, a gigantic corroded wrench, a huge brass whistle once mounted atop a funnel and the delicate filigree of a wrought iron bench once gracing the deck.
These and many other artifacts of the magnificent ship, found scattered near the wreck site 12,460 feet below the ocean’s surface, have been recovered and are on display in a fascinating exhibit, “Titanic,” at the Discovery Times Square Exposition that offers special group student prices and a teachers’ guide to encourage school field trips.
Seeing the remains of the brilliantly designed, watertight vessel — she should’ve made it, should be a floating museum now — is heart-wrenching. Perhaps even more so is viewing the personal items of the passengers, everyday objects they had packed one day long ago no doubt with optimism and a sense of adventure: jewelry, postcards, Toronto trolley tickets, cherry-flavored toothpaste, money, playing cards, a curling iron.
Visitors entering the exhibit are handed a reproduction of a boarding pass and assume the identity of the passenger whose name is on it. At the end of their journey back in time, they can check out their assumed name against the names on wall charts to see if they had survived or perished.
Before finding out their destiny, however, visitors will be awed by the remarkable galleries, covering everything from the ship’s construction to its terrible last night. They can get a sense of how cold the water was by placing their palms on a simulated iceberg made of real ice.
They’ll learn about life on board by the reproductions of cabins from lowly to lavish, dining room menus (from the pate de foie de gras of First Class to the boiled potatoes and beef ragout of Third Class) and even by the dinnerware, from ornate to plain depending on the social status of the diner. One set of dinnerware stands up neatly in sand just how it was found, as if it had slid gently and in perfect order off its rack onto the ocean floor.
Reconstructed here is the grand staircase, which many people will recognize from the movie, “The Titanic” —minus, of course, Leonardo DiCaprio’s love interest descending it.
Also not included in this non-Hollywood version is Celine Dion endlessly belting out “My Heart Will Go On.” The only audio is music from the era (the band was told to play even as the ship went down), eerie deep-sea noises and the narrative on headphones telling incredible stories of humanity and heroism.
This is serious — and captivating — stuff.
One might say Lucy, from the exhibit “Lucy’s Legacy: The Hidden Treasure of Ethiopia,” is really put together.
Long before humankind built ships or wore diamonds and evening clothes, or any clothes, for that matter, there was Lucy.
Meet your oldest known and best preserved upright walking human ancestor at another must-see exhibit at the Discovery center, “Lucy’s Legacy: The Hidden Treasure of Ethiopia.”
The model of the petite, charming 3.2 million-year-old lady, who radically altered scientists’ understanding of human origins, is strikingly feminine despite jutting brow, head-to-toe body hair and killer abs.
Murals showing great apes evolving into homo sapiens living and hunting and gathering in tribal groups, overcoming obstacles, keeping warm, caring for their young — and even behaving badly — are poignant and remarkably, well, human.
Before meeting Lucy, whose partial skeleton is on loan from Ethiopia, visitors can treat themselves to the stunning artifacts of that country on display in the “Cradle of Humanity” portion of the exhibit.
Primitive ceramic bowls, elaborate triptyches with Christian themes, gold Stars of David and rich Islamic designs tell about the rich history and cultures of the place where Lucy was born and died.
“Titanic” is running until spring of 2010 and “Lucy’s Legacy” until Oct. 31, 2009 at Discovery Times Square Exposition, 226 West 44th St. For more information, student ticket prices (including one free ticket for every 10 purchased) and free downloads of teachers’ guides go to www.ticketsforgroups.com and/or www.DiscoveryTSX.com.
