Poplarville Lower Elementary received a grant that covered the cost for admission to the Mississippi Aquarium. The grant covered the admission for 144 First Grade students and 18 Chaperones. The funding for the field trip was received from the Mississippi Aquarium-Project SAIL, Ingalls Shipbuilding, Citizens Bank, and Beau Rivage, Resort & Casino. Renee Howard, a First Grade Teacher, who wrote the grant states, “Today’s students are visual learners and a field trip lets them touch, feel, and listen to what they’re learning about, which helps them build on classroom instruction. Therefore, students can better understand the world around them. My goal, as a teacher, is to provide a learning environment where all my students love learning. Also, we know that students who have been exposed to many different things do better in school. Experiential learning helps students build background knowledge, and research shows that background knowledge is utilized to be a successful reader. Field trips provide real world learning, provide access to tools/environments that are not available at school, and provide social/emotional growth.”
During the field trip students received a 50-60 minute private instructor-led lesson on Physical Structures (Shark Secrets). During the lesson, students had to identify and describe animal body parts, as it relates to a shark’s sensory organs. Also, Students had to classify the physical characteristics of sharks. Afterwards, students took a guided tour of the Mississippi Aquarium.
