Seattle Field Trip Advice

TINKERING: Tuesday evening, we continued our work as part of an ongoing session at Pacific Science Center called Tech Tales. It's a focus group/program funded by the National Science Foundation, the University of Washington, Seattle Public Libraries, and Pacific Science Center, to name a few. Per its Wordpress website, Tech Tales is is an opportunity for families "to learn about circuitry, robotics, e-textiles, and programming together—use old and new technology to bring your stories to life."

Our project is a combination of robotics, electronics, storytelling and visual arts. Each family had to choose a story they wanted to tell, and now the challenge is to make it come to life in a wired for sound, lights, and other special-effects diorama.

We have chosen to recreate a scene from our trip to see "The Wall" performed in Wembley stadium, but also make it an allegory about talk today of building a wall along a U.S. border and how we feel about that. It's going to be titled #TearDowntheWall.

IN THE FIELD: This morning, I helped host a session sharing information about field trips tips with some local home schooling parents. 

I started by showing a photo of astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, I will never forget him addressing the crowd at the social media event for the Juno launch, and he was talking about education and how the things kids seem to remember most about their years of schooling are the field trips.

I really took his statement to heart, and when we decided to go down a super alternative education path, I was determined to try to make most every day a field trip of some sort. 

One thing I made sure to mention is that it doesn't have to be part of a huge Master Plan and this huge, orchestrated event. Sometimes, the best field trips are by happenstance.

 For instance, there was that day where we were pulling into the parking lot to go to a class in Shoreline and heard on the radio that there was a Super Big Special Event at the Space Needle regarding Angry Birds that morning. We put the car in reverse and headed back down to Seattle to go. 

Our reward for being spontaneous was Angry Birds shirts, stuffies, a signed book and meeting the game designers. That, and getting to see an enormous Angry Bird hanging from the Space Needle!

And sometimes you have a field trip planned and it turns into something else. For instance, not long ago, we were at The Museum of Flight for one reason, when we happened to see a sign about a talk a docent was giving. We spontaneously shifted course, went to that and heard The Most Amazing story told by a 90+ year old gentleman about the time he and his crewmates and their B-29 crash landed in the Pacific Ocean off Iwo Jima - and they all lived to tell about it! 

We felt so privileged to have heard that story, and it wouldn't have happened if we hadn't been willing to reboot our plans on the spot. 

Another aspect I talked about was timing.  

I shared that we avoid field trips on weekends and during school hours if at all possible. 

Why?

Well, we kind of like the place to ourselves.

What's funny is I Googled for an image of "crowded museum and got the one upper left below.

And then I Googled "deserted museum" and got the lower right photo. 

I didn't realize until a bit later they are one and the same museum!

Yeah, I want to go to the lower right one! My point was that we schedule our field trips for first thing in the morning or after about 2:30, when the last school bus with dozens of kids leaves a venue. It's ever-so-much more pleasurable (at least from my perspective) to visit museums when there's not a crowd.

Another aspect I covered: Go outside your comfort zone and try something new!

Case in point: We're not golfers. We don't watch golf, the kids have never done anything above putt putt a couple of times, and Christian golfs about one a year. But, a couple of years ago the US Open (the 'Super Bowl' of US golf) came to a course just south of Seattle. So, we went.

We TOTALLY didn't know what to expect, and were fish out of water, but it was AWESOME! So much fun, and something we'll never forget!

We got to hoist the actual US Open trophy, and because there were so few kids there, CJ and Annabelle were media darlings. :) What an amazing day!

I made sure to point out that amazing adventures don't have to cost big bucks. Or any bucks.

We talked about free "First Thursdays" at museums, getting tickets to attractions through King County and Seattle Public Library (insider info:SPL's available tickets refresh at 9 p.m. every night).

I even talked a bit about my experiences as a mystery shopper, where by working a bit you get paid to play.

And I pointed out that social media is a powerful tool to ID-ing cool places to go. People are always asking me how I find out about all the cool events going on. Facebook is our best friend in that regard, as it tracks your every move. For instance, when an event pops up in my feed and if I'm even remotely interested in it, I record that 'like' or 'interested,' as I know that I will be rewarded as the software will record that feedback and then continue to flood my feed with other events in the same vein.

And perhaps the best advice I could give anyone is this:  

If you ever have the opportunity to meet an astronaut, DO IT!!!!!!!

Seriously. Each and every one of them is remarkable, with a stunning life story and experiences and knowledge to share. 

CJ and Annabelle have met the very first human (Alexey Leonov, lower left) to ever do a spacewalk. They've met moonwalker Buzz Aldrin. Twice. They have visited with Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield (upper left) three times. He is such a remarkable human. They have chatted with South Korea's one and only astronaut, Yi So-yeon. They have had lunch with astronaut and physicist Jerome "Jay" Apt, and were two of only three people in attendance. How about that? They met astronaut Jeannette Epps (lower right) after her aquanaut experience (living in an undersea lab!), but before she was named as a flyer on a future Soyuz flight. They won the chance to have breakfast with geophysicist and astronaut Drew Fuestel (upper right) by solving a riddle and finding a treasure hidden at a Seattle landmark. They have been inspired by the first Native American spacewalker, John Herrington.

And that's the short list. 

All in all, it was a good session with lots of information shared and absorbed.