School Trips Part Two

     Starting in second grade, those in authority at my school, St. Lawrence RC School, decided that by second grade we could have a full-day school trip. Therefore, in spring 1964, some of the staff, the nun I had for a teacher, and the teacher for the other second grade class escorted us on busses, and we headed to the Philadelphia Zoo. I have been here before with my parents, but I still found it interesting looking at the animals, even if most of them were just sleeping. Back then, the zoo sold special “keys” in the shape of an elephant with the trunk being the key that you inserted into a special audio box near the different animals. Thus, the staff bought several, and the adult in each of our groups had us gather around the box and listen to an audio talk about that particular animal. The Children’s Zoo proved especially popular because we could handle some the farm animals there. I particularly remember a woman from the zoo staff holding a chimpanzee and telling us that he was not a monkey. (I have since learned that chimpanzees share 99.6% of the same DNA as Humans; that makes them closer to us than to monkeys.) As the day wore on, it got hotter, and we were so thirsty that we drank from the drinking fountains, despite the funny taste of the water. (The water is safe; Philadelphia’s tap water comes from the Delaware River, and it is filtered and cleaned, but I can taste the chemicals in it.) I have reports about this place in my publications.

     It was spring of 1965, and our third-grade school trip was to the Aquarama in South Philadelphia. (This place opened in the mid-1960s and closed in the later 1960s.) This time we looked at tanks of different kinds of fish, tropical birds, and a dolphin show. The dolphin show was very interesting for most of us because of the popularity of the TV show Flipper that was on prime time TV then.

     This would be my last school trip with St. Lawrence School, and during our fourth-grade trip, spring 1966, we took a longer than usual bus ride to Trenton, NJ, to visit the New Jersey State Museum. Here, we looked at rocks, plants, and stuffed animals as well as artifacts from the local Native Americans, the Lenni-Lenapes (Back then, we still called them Indians.), items from other past human residents in NJ from the 1600s to the 1960s, and other exhibit areas. I also remember our teacher pointing out to us when we were outside of the museum the gold-domed state capitol building that was next door.

     The following year, 1967, found me at another school, the local public school in Clementon. Thus, our fifth-grade school trip was to Batsto, NJ, in Wharton State Park. Batsto was once a company town that made items of iron in the 1700s. Sometime in the 1800s, the town changed its industry to glass, and in the late 1800s, Joseph Wharton bought the town and turned it into a gentleman’s farm. Sometime in the early 1960s, the state of NJ restored the town to look the way it did in the late 1800s. We toured the mansion, walked around the village of workers’ houses (We couldn’t go into them because state workers lived in them.), and looked inside the general store. We also saw the sawmill in action as well as the gristmill, rode a stagecoach around the property, and took a guided nature hike in the surrounding woods. (I have written a report about Batsto in my publications.)

     In spring of 1968, we took our sixth-grade school trip to Valley Forge, PA. Once here, we saw a film in the visitors’ center about what went on at Valley Forge as well as some exhibit items from the 1700s, toured the farmhouse that Washington stayed in, and the reproductions of the log cabins the troops stayed at during that time. (I also have a report about Valley Forge in my publications.)

     Our seventh-grade homeroom teacher in junior high organized a trip in spring 1969 to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Thus, we have the chance to see plenty of stuffed animals, mostly in dioramas, rocks, plants, and bones of animals—both extinct and non-extinct. (I also wrote about this museum in my publications.)

     For the next year, eight grade and spring 1970, our homeroom teacher organized a school trip for us to visit the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia. This may have been one of the most popular school trips because of the many hands-on exhibits for students and other people to try to operate—and hopefully learn the science behind what we were doing. (I have a few reports about this place in my publications.)