
Today was a gorgeous day, full of blue skies, turkey vultures and mine shafts. That's right, I took my kids on a field trip to Sterling Hill Mining Museum in Ogdensburg, New Jersey, where they got to learn about the dangers of mining and the rock types that abound in a mine.
I have said it before and will continue to say it: I believe trips are the best way to get kids excited about learning. My students are often rowdy to the point of wildness, unruly and unmanageable. But get them out in a field in New Jersey and they will beg you to help them fill their cardboard box with the 6 different rocks they are supposed to find. The toughest kids grow wide-eyed upon entering the cold, damp mine tunnel. It was an experience that none of them are likely to have again and I made it possible for them.
Talk about an authentic learning experience. Our tour guide was an old, soft-spoken man who worked in a mine himself for most of his life. He told the kids stories about how he started out as a "mucker," breaking up rocks by hand that hadn't been broken down enough in the initial dynamite blast. He told them about a friend of his who was crushed under a giant piece of iron and killed. And he told them about the marble that lined the walls we walked through. They took it all in and really experienced it.
Trips are hands-on learning amplified. Not only are the kids investigating science for themselves, they are experiencing it with their whole bodies. Taken out of their normal, safe environment, even the toughest kids become angels. They know instinctively that they can't get away with things that they get away with back at school, so they don't even attempt it. I am always truly amazed to see that side of them.
For anyone in the New York or New Jersey area, I highly recommend that you take your students to Sterling Hill. The tour guides are fabulous and the learning experience the kids receive is unparalleled. I could tell that it opened so many of them up to science and made what we have been learning about come alive.
To the right, check out one of the cool fluorescent rocks found at the mine!

In my graduate class (which focuses on literacy in the content-area class), we have focused a lot on how to incorporate technology into the classroom. Now, I consider myself pretty computer literate - I mean, I write a blog, use Facebook and Twitter and can even do some basic HTML programming. But as a first-year teacher, I have been finding it difficult to find time to incorporate these things into my classroom.
