Remember the excitement of field trips when you were in gradeschool? The permission slips, the brown bag lunch, the buddy system, the herding of kids onto busses and the transportation to a museum or planetarium in a semi-distant city. Fond memories for generations of kids and adults alike...
But, alas, things change. A certain level of uneasiness exists, it seems, between parent and educator. Lawsuits are a common thing nowadays, as increasing numbers of parents, whether justified or not, find reasons to slap lawsuits on school systems and the people that run them.
Let's also not forget the explosive surge in gasoline prices in the last few years. What was once a happy parade of several school busses is now a caravan of environment dirtying, money burning machines. Rising fuel costs affect everything down the line as well, driving up prices in the areas of food, heating and air conditioning, to name just a few.
Then, of course, there's the terrorism-- and I'm not talking about the danger of getting blown up while looking at a skeletal T-Rex. Thankfully we live in a society that, at present, doesn't have such immediate safety worries. I'm instead talking about the financial burden that waging "war on terror" has on our government, which trickles down into the economy at large and more specifically into school funding programs of many kinds.
These factors all add up into increasing hardships for the classic tradition of the school field trip. A common response for the finacially burdened school district might be to pass these additional costs along to parents that are already often financially burdened themselves. Another may be to scrap the trip altogether, which bad solution for the children.
Here's an idea-- bring the field trip to them!
By bringing in an outside, professionally run attraction to the students, an educator effectively eliminates several issues and creates new possibilities for students to learn and explore. Liability can be cut to an absolute minimum due to the event being either in house or very close in town at another school in the district. Travel time, fuel consumption costs,environmental impact and food concerns can all be reduced to neglible levels. Multiple school districts can even pool financial resources to further reduce costs.
Don't think that convenience comes at the cost of quality. Today's modern learning or "Edu-tainment" shows utilize some of the most current technology available to provide participants with a learning experience that rivals and in some ways excels that of a planetarium experience.
With the ability to bring an event to students instead of the other way around, learning can be maximized as wasted time (travel, organization, etc.) is effectively cut out of the equation.
One such attraction is the Dome Theater by Kramer Entertainment. The Dome Theater is a mobile digital theater featuring highly innovative, immersive, and educational programs. It features a broad selection of shows on everything from the collossal scope of the Universe to the microscopic world of the human body. Other shows include space science, earth science, history, biology, geology, and much more. With every show available at any time, each Dome Theater event can be tailored to fit in with the school's current cirriculum as well as modified at any time to adapt to the changing needs and interests of the students. |
