Back-To-Schooling September: A Teacher’s Perspective
With buses, lunches, permission slips and other details, it takes dedication and coordination to organize student field trips. We are thankful to teachers who coordinate this experience for their students every schoolyear. We asked seasoned educator Dan Dahnert to chat with us about what Aquarium field trips mean for his students and what keeps him returning year after year.
“I teach seventh- and eighth- grade science and math at St. Dominic School in Shaker Heights. We started doing field trips to the Aquarium in May 2018 with the eighth-grade class for squid dissection and a tour. The program offered at the Aquarium fits the Science curriculum very well and is an easy trip for schools around the city. Each year, some of the students have never been to the Aquarium (which shocks me), and most of the other students have only been when they were a lot younger.
We usually dissect an earthworm or fish before the field trip to get them ready for the experience. They react in many different ways to the squid dissection—some are all in, but some just want to leave the room because of the smell. I encourage them to participate since they will be doing more labs like this in high school. It is definitely a memorable experience for them; students who come back to visit St. Dominic update me on what they’ve dissected in high school and are appreciative of the opportunity to start in eighth grade.
The tour of the Aquarium [for this particular program] is self-guided, and we spend time talking about invasive species like the lionfish and the sea lampreys. I enjoy seeing the piranhas since I had one for a while growing up (his name was Fang). They seem to like the sharks the most, followed by the octopus, the stingrays and the gift shop. Students get especially excited whenever there is a scuba diver in the shark habitat.
I try to take advantage of the teacher programs offered at the beginning of the year each year to visit for free and find out about any new programs. It is easy to set up a field trip with the staff during the winter to prepare for the field trip later in the year. I know the students will get a quality experience at the Aquarium each May.”
Dave Dahnert
St. Dominic School
Shaker Heights, OH