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Museum Field Trips for Wooster Students

It is not an unfamiliar site at Wooster to see students piling into yellow buses or school vans to visit a variety of cultural institutions. These excursions may include art, natural history, and science museums, as well as local farms, schools, and community businesses. This week we will showcase our museum learning experiences.

We see these experiences as central part to a student’s learning story. Not only do these field trips add to the course or the subject area, but they also contribute to the development of cultured, young Wooster Generals who now possess more knowledge from the experience.

Here are some of the exciting enrichment museum field trips that have happened this year at Wooster:

Aldrich Museum

Who: Grades 9 and 10
When: October
Purpose: Wooster teachers from Humanities, Physics, Biology, Makerspace, Bridge, and Art developed lessons connected to their curriculum based on the exhibitions at the Aldrich Museum.
Highlights: Connecting the tiny house project to Your Turn, an installation where two artists live suspended on either side of a wall for a week with only the basic necessities.

Aldrich Museum

Who: DLI Art History
When: 5 Saturdays between October and February
Purpose: The class participated in a partnership with the Aldrich Museum on the exhibition Anissa Mack: Junk Kaleidoscope. The class met with the curator and artist at the museum and at the artist’s studio to examine the issue of how objects are valued and classified as art. The group evaluated and re-installed the exhibition for a second opening in January.

Metropolitan Museum

Who: Grades 3, 4, and 5 along with Art History DLI
When: November
Purpose: Lower school students visited the collections areas that corresponded to their studies. For fourth grade, this meant a trip to the ancient greek collection. DLI students studied works in the Greek collection and led the fourth graders through discussions and activities in the galleries. DLI students then visited the Islamic collections to connect to studies of Islamic art and prepare for a collaboration with the Katonah Museum.

Katonah Museum of Art

Who: DLI Art History and 9th Grade
When: DLI had a full year partnership; 9th grade trip
Purpose:

1. DLI Art History was invited by the Katonah Museum of Art to create interpretive materials for the exhibition “Long Winding Journeys: Contemporary Artists working in the Islamic Visual Tradition.” In preparation, DLI students began a tutorial study of the history of Islamic visual traditions. Over several months students visited the museum to meet with curators and educators, and finally to design the hands-on activities in the Museum’s Learning center
2. 9th grade Humanities will study Islam this spring. DLI Art History students will come along to frame the exhibition and discuss how art of the past acts as a lens through which to view present-day experience.

Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk

Who: 6th grade
When: May
Purpose: Students in the 6th grade visited the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk to learn about sea turtles. This learning opportunity is the initiating event for these students, who are embarking on an interdisciplinary, project-based learning initiative. 6th grade students will be exploring sea turtles through the lenses of science, math, English, and geography, with the end goal of creating a digital media piece that educates other about threats to turtle survival.

Yale Peabody Museum

Who: Grades K,1,2,3
When: April
Purpose: Students went to the Peabody Museum to finish up a STEAM dinosaur unit in art, library, science and music. The students were are able to see and touch actual fossils and see dinosaur bones reconstructed by paleontologists. The unit included the students researching a dinosaur of their choice and recording their nonfiction research. They graphed the length of their dinosaur of choice, learned about their habitat, their diet, created models in art, and produced stop animation and active animation videos. Peabody was a highlight of the unit.

These memorable, immersive learning experiences provoke imagination and give our Wooster students a chance to connect, understand, explore and indulge innovative thoughts. Our next learning experience highlight reel will showcase our connections with local farms and community organizations.