My Field Trips

The places that I would like to take my class are the Georgia Aquarium, Fernbank Museum of Natural History, and Zoo Atlanta. I actually experienced all three of these attractions this past week in Atlanta. The Georgia Aquarium was amazing! My favorite part was getting to see the Beluga whales. The Georgia Aquarium is a great place to bring your class so that they can come face to face with some of the creatures they have been studying. I thought it was really neat how they had the exhibit about the Georgia coast. The Georgia Aquarium has many excellent programs that follow the Georgia Performance Standards for grades K-12 and offer guided and behind the scenes tours for students.

Fernbank was a nice trip as well. It was so cool when you walked in the doors to see the huge dinosaurs looming in the middle of this massive building! My favorite part of Fernbank was the Georgia exhibit as well. I loved how it was divided into the different regions of Georgia and showed the different animals and habitats for each of them. It was very realisitic. I noticed they have two children's sections, one for younger kids and another for early elementary kids. I loved the hands-on section. Elementary students would have a great time in there and all of the activities were learning opportunities.

Zoo Atlanta was awesome! I don't think I had been to the zoo since middle school, so it was fun. I would love to take a group to the zoo right after a unit on animals and habitats. The zoo is set up so well and each station gives lots of information about each animal. My favorite section of the zoo was the Giant Panda exhibit. I got to see Mei Lan and her mother and father! The zoo would also be a great place to introduce different cultures, because so many different ones are represented by different animal exhibits. Zoo Atlanta offers guided tours for school groups, and just like the Georgia Aquarium, they offer activities that are based on the Georgia Performance Standards for each grade level.

I also went to the High Museum of Art. The last time I visited the museum was in high school. I really enjoyed the Louvre exhibit. It was really something to see! My other favorite part of the museum would have to be a tie between the Contemporary gallery and the Folk Art gallery. The folk art gallery had some pictures that I would definitely love to have in my home, bc they were so full of life and meaning. The Contemporary gallery I really enjoyed walking through and looking at it, but I do not think there was any picture that i would really like to have in my house. To me most of those pictures and works of art were very odd and did not hold any meaning for me. I also loved the marble sculptures because they were so realistic! It was amazing to see how much life the artist was able to put into them. Many of them looked as if they could have stepped right off of the stand they were being displayed on!