Daughters' school posted today:

[elleng]

For the culminating activity of their Transportation unit, 2nd graders mapped a trip to Union Station last week. Once there, they hopped on the metro to interview commuters about their public transportation habits. Which do YOU like better -- taking the metro or the bus?

Nice idea, eh?
(P.S., been a mother for 27 years yesterday!)

[immoderate]

1. Sounds educational to me.

--imm

[NYC_SKP]

2. Yay! Fascinating, especially for second graders. I have high school students preparing...

...to do exactly the same thing!

We are helping to promote the use of rail in anticipation of launching High Speed rail in California, and I just had three students present before the citizen advisory committee the results of their initial interviews with riders.

We went in the wee hours of the morning to two stations and they were only able to interview six people.

The advisory board suggested that the interview teams ride along, thus having a lot more time than doing it on the train platform, so we'll try that.

A different group of students are writing an activity guide for teachers to use when they take students on trips to Great America in San Jose. Currently, teachers don't have anything for kids to do, but it's a great opportunity for them to look out the window and learn things about the different cities and landmarks and history as they take the 90 minute ride.

I'd love to hear the results of your students' interviews!

--Barry

[mbperrin]

3. You'd never get permission from our district for that kind of trip.

We wanted to take 4 senior students to a nice steakhouse for lunch to celebrate their win in a national stock market game.

Rejected as too risky. The group was too small to require the district's 70 passenger bus for transport, which we would have had to pay $3 a mile, $11 an hour, 100 mile, 2 day minimum rate, same as our athletic teams.

We just had them meet us with their parents on a Saturday.

Nice to know there are still places where things are happening!

[elleng]

4. That's what I'm so afraid of.

Lowell's a small, private school in DC, and is thereby positioned to teach as it should be done. This is also why I support the Charter movement, generally: Freedom.