Field trips were some of my favorite activities in grade school - leaving school classrooms to go camping or the local arts center. So, I was very excited to hear that SAS has field trips for each class! While students take traditional classes on board the gigantic mini-floating college called the MV Explorer during Semester at sea, the program requires each class to do a one-day 8 hour field lab (basically a field trip) that focuses on course content and relevant assignments. This is definitely one of my favorite parts of the trip. I wonder if I could incorporate it when I get back home?? A field trip to Yosemite in Writing 10?
On, SAS, for example, a sociology class could hear lectures on the Samba from
locals and then learn the dance in Rio de Janeiro. Or, a religions class
could visit the various monasteries and temples in Shanghai, China.
Field labs help students practice their course material out in the real
world and they say that their labs really aid in their understanding of
class concepts. How cool is that?
My course, Academic Writing Workshop, gets to go to St. Petersburg, Russia for a tour of major "memory" monuments for our field lab. We begin the semester with "memory" and its correlation to history, collective national narratives and material triggers. Students will learn how to locate memory in the places they visit and separate memory from history. We will be going to the Peterhof Place (above), the Singer House (of Books), and the Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood (below).
In St. Petersburg, I'll show students how to use a keyword like memory to "read" the monuments, choices, movements, people and feelings of Russia. I could have taken them to the local university or something (since I get to propose the plan for the day) but I figure it might be a good idea for them to become more familiar with some rich locations and use their lab to get interested in their own writing. Fingers crossed!
