It's 5 a.m. on Monday morning April 28. Six busses, carrying 230 Mill Creek 8th graders and 29 Dexter Community School staff set out on a five-day journey across the country to Gettysburg National Park and Washington, D.C.
Eighth-grade teachers spent weeks preparing their students for this eventful trip. Before the trip, students researched the Battle of Gettysburg along with various Washington, D.C. landmarks and memorials and presented reports to their classmates in the form of oral presentations, Power Point slides and posters.
One group of students created a wall-sized mural of the Gettysburg battlefield on the wall of their classroom. Each student was also required to chronicle his/her adventures in a Washington, D.C. journal, collect artifacts, and write an essay related to their journey along the way.
A team of Mill Creek parents got together and organized several fundraisers to help families with the cost of the D.C. trip. Many families earned hundreds of dollars toward their trip by participating in these fundraisers, which included flower bulb sales, Thanksgiving pie sales, earning-back-money-on-your-groceries with a Busch's card, and Script gift card earnings.
Following are just a few of the many insightful excerpts from student journals and essays:
Gettysburg Battlefield
"Our guide at Gettysburg was really cool and knew everything. I don't usually like history, but that was amazing! I've never seen anything like that before. When I was on the hill, I was thinking that right in front of me a soldier stood and shot at people and some people died here."
Austin Elliott
"For me, when we were standing on Little Round Top (at Gettysburg) and our tour guide was explaining the battles, it really made the Battle of Gettysburg a lot clearer. Instead of seeing this map with arrows pointing in all directions, I could actually see the land. I could see where the Confederates were hiding in the forest and where the Union soldiers were and the actual field where the battle took place.
Nicole Ferguson
Holocaust Memorial Museum
"The Holocaust Museum was an eye-opening experience for me. It was really gruesome what the Nazis did. They had their own set of beliefs and slaughtered thousands of people who didn't fit the criteria. We learned about the concentration camps and how the Nazis would starve the people and do the most dehumanizing things to them. They would use their hair for pillows and beds and their skin for lamp shades. And to think that it was going on like that for years before we helped! And that we turned away a number of Jewish and other refugees. Also, that even now the same type of genocide is going on in Darfur, Africa."
Nick Empey
"The two things that impacted me the most were seeing the shoes that they'd collected and all the pictures of the people on the walls. When I saw the shoes I was like, 'Whoa.' These shoes were worn by actual people that were actually in the Holocaust and that actually were killed in those concentration camps. That really brought home the whole Holocaust into perspective. It was no longer just some text on a page; it was real. When I saw the pictures of people, I was instantly saddened. Those faces were smiling. They looked happy, blissfully unaware of the agony that was about to be brought down on them. That alone, was just too much; that is an experience I will never forget. Garrett Schmaler
"It is important to visit here because it is a terrible thing that happened and it should never happen again."
Ben Finn
Vietnam Wall
"The Vietnam Memorial was amazing. The reason the wall was designed that way is because the artist wanted it to look like God took a knife and jammed it into the ground as a wound, and when the grass grows over, it means it is healing. I never knew that. I think that was pretty cool."
Megan Sweetland
"I thought the wall was so sad. People left stuff on the bottom of the wall. My bus driver wouldn't go past the fence by the Women's Memorial because he knows some people that died and their names are on the wall and he doesn't want to read them. I thought that was sad."
Hailey Sheets
"It made me want to cry reading poems left for fallen soldiers along the Vietnam Memorial Wall."
Holly Clegg
National Cathedral
"My most favorite part of today was the National Cathedral. Oh my gosh it was so pretty and magnificent! It is the most fascinating building that I have ever seen! Two of my favorite windows were the Space Window, because in the middle of it was a moon rock that Neil Armstrong brought back from the moon, and the Agriculture Window because 4-H is a huge part of my life." Courtney Cook
Dinner Cruise on the Potomac
"We just got back from an eventful evening. We went on a big 4-story ship for a cruise. The dinner buffet was delicious. There was a great view. And Mr. Fry can dance." Katie Adler
Monuments
"Another thing I loved about DC was that we were told so many details. Our tour guides knew so much more of the little things that we might have never known without them. The monuments weren't just monuments; they were stories with background information that makes up our history. Some of the facts of the monuments and stories were unimaginable! I thought that it was crazy that one of the builders of the Lincoln Memorial misspelled a word. There were a lot of amazing little facts that made history, its battles and monuments, a little more interesting than it already was." Amanda Mayer
White House and Memorials
"Unlike reading textbooks, you actually get to see the White House with a tour guide and learn about it while it's right in front of you! Plus when you see the memorials in real life towering about you, it really helps you embrace what they stand for. You especially see how these wars have affected our nation's people by just walking along the Vietnam Memorial Wall. Roses and real life stories of husbands, brothers, and sons who fought in the war are all lined up against the Wall. The trip pieces together all the material you read about these places with actually being there and looking at everything in front of you. It's almost like stepping inside a movie and looking around and seeing everything you would have otherwise missed."
Nicole Ferguson
Lincoln Memorial
"My favorite memorial was the Lincoln Memorial. I thought it was cool to see the Martin Luther King quote on the steps. It made me realize I was standing where so many famous speeches were made and so many famous people stood." Lynn Metz
Arlington National Cemetery
"Today we went to Arlington. That was amazing. I love Arlington; it has a lot of emotional value to me. I've lost a lot of relatives to wars, so I can relate to most of the people." Zane Hammond
"The thing that impressed me the most was how the guards protected the Unknown Soldier even when there are big storms. The soldiers choose to stay and guard the brave men inside the tomb." Erin Steptoe
"It is amazing that these men guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every week of the year! Another neat thing was John F. Kennedy's gravestone and the eternal flame that burns there." Holly Clegg
Mount Vernon
"Next we went to Mount Vernon. It was very cool to see a place where our first president lived. I stood in the same rooms he did!" Molly Carmody
"First we went to George Washington's tomb. It was so cool to know how close you were standing to a legend. He was in a coffin, next to his wife and there was a vault behind him that contained the rest of his family. Next we went to the wharf by the water. Then we saw his fields and his barns. We also saw the houses where the slaves lived." Matt Munzel
In conclusion
"Some kids at Mill Creek Middle School probably have never even been out of Dexter, much less visited our nation's capital. Every child should know what it feels like to look upon the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, or the Washington Monument. They deserve to feel that inspiration that being in Washington DC brings. This trip provides a one-of-a-kind learning experience that you can only get in DC.
Fun with your friends, becoming a well-rounded student, and an amazing learning opportunity are just a few of the many reasons the DC trip is valuable. Just imagine a week in DC full of sight-seeing, fun activities and exploring with your friends. I think every child deserves that. Now don't you think that a trip to DC is a valuable experience?" Nicole Ferguson
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