WASHINGTON, D.C. — It’s one factor to examine historical past in a guide and even see photos. However to bodily be current on the grounds the place historical past has been made, contact precise historic paperwork, and stand in awe on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial has Copperas Cove junior excessive and highschool college students stating that seeing historical past come to life are classes they are going to ceaselessly bear in mind.
S. C. Lee Junior Excessive seventh grade Texas Historical past instructor Pamela Knutson began planning the journey in early 2020 previous to the pandemic which put the journey on maintain for greater than two years.
“The aim of the journey is to assist college students get hands-on expertise in regards to the historical past they research within the classroom, having the scholars see that the individuals and locations had been actual, not simply in textbooks,” Knutson mentioned. “Seeing the locations and paperwork that might be or had been studied convey this stuff to life. The purpose is that this journey will encourage extra studying sooner or later.”
With the help of a historic information, college students and employees visited the capitol, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, Korean Warfare Memorial, and extra.
Copperas Cove Junior Excessive U.S. Historical past instructor Samantha Moss mentioned the journey is a once-in-a-lifetime expertise for many college students.
“College students acquired to be outdoors of the classroom and find out about their nation’s historical past in a extra hands-on means. College students smiled and cried as they walked in the identical steps because the founding fathers, stood in entrance of essentially the most well-known American landmarks, and discovered extra intimate particulars relating to how the nation was formed,” Moss mentioned. “They had been in a position to see this stuff first-hand, not simply on a PowerPoint, and garner a special love for studying with out the stress of an examination. Having the ability to take their studying outdoors of the classroom and see the impression it has actually made is the largest good thing about this journey.”
College students encountered studying classes at visits to every historic web site discussing its significance and the way it affected change in America.
“The journey put a highlight on how the enslaved inhabitants of America is the muse and spine of as we speak’s America,” Copperas Cove Excessive Faculty pupil Roman Garcia mentioned. “It highlighted the nice and unhealthy of the occasions that came about and the way they affected the American
individuals. It exhibits how every historic occasion that’s occurred has been a chance to be taught and construct from and the way the American individuals have achieved simply that to adapt evolve and make America what it’s as we speak. It offers me a newfound inspiration to adapt to any hardships and to be higher to individuals as anybody and everybody can change the course of historical past in any means they want.”