As you may recall, a little while back we were exploring the reasons behind many of the earthquakes that happen in places such as California, Alaska, Japan, and New Zealand. We had discussed some of the major earthquakes that had happened in the past couple years and then took a look at the United States Geological Survey website to view the locations of recent quakes. After doing so, we plotted some of the earthquakes that we found using Google Maps. We discovered that it had to do with the location of tectonic plates and the movement within the earth. Coincidentally, it just so happened, that the Boston Museum of Science had a movie playing at the Mugar Omni Imax Theater called the Ring of Fire. It coincided perfectly with what we’d learned about!
The best part about the movie was the fact that it was located at the Museum of Science, so we were able to explore all the other amazing exhibits while we were there! We were able to view an electricity show, see an exhibit all about geckos, see a live showing of a tree shrew, and play around with math! We even got to see some thermal images of ourselves!
One of the highlights was being able to view one of only four nearly complete sets of Triceratops bones in the world! At the young age of of being only 65 million years old (that’s a lot of candles to blow out), the Triceratops was nicknamed Cliff. Our photographers Kevin and Ed got some great photographs of him!
Everyone also seemed to really enjoy the electricity show! We learned all about just how hot and dangerous lightning can be. We also found out what works as a great conductor and what doesn’t. Through a couple of items in the exhibit, we were able to see that we’re a better conductor than air, that’s why electricity is more attracted to us!
It was an amazing day! We were lucky enough to have a couple students who were in charge of taking pictures on our new iPod Touches throughout the day! Once we got back, the students used those pictures to create their own Animotos on the iPod Touches. You can also view Taite’s blog. She shared her own experience and made her own Animoto of the trip!
Mr. Avery even made one of his own of some of the videos he took throughout the day. One of the best parts after looking back at the videos was all the smiling faces we had all day long. It’s always great to have a field trip. It’s even better when it’s one that’s a great educational experience and everyone has fun!
*What was your favorite part of the field trip?*
*What other museums have you visited?*
Dear Mr Averyβs Class
WOW! I have watched your field trip video I think your students are lucky because here in New Zealand we have museums but not with live creatures or we donβt have dinosaur fossils only sea creature skulls. The type of bones we have are giant eagles, Moas, which is our extinct native bird and our giant crocs that are extinct also.
Yours Sincerely
Navajo
Room 24, Taradale Intermediate
Dear Mr. Avery,
We really enjoyed your pictures and videos of your science adventure. We want to learn more. And after reading those thrilling captions we thought that they were very interesting and we want to go to that museum. We hope you put up more pictures and videos. Have a nice day.
Nolan and Adam
Looks like you guys had a blast! We loved watching your Animoto. Our teacher, Mrs Hannah is going to teach us all how to do an Animoto soon.
Mr. Avery,
I am a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. I really enjoyed reading your blog post about your student’s field trip. It looks like you guys had an amazing time. We have a museum that is similar to that here that is called The Exploreum. I really enjoyed watching your videos and seeing all of the pictures of your students having such a great time while learning. I believe that is key to getting students to learn. Thanks for your post!
Hi Brooke,
Thanks so much for your comment. We’re so happy to hear from you! I know your class spends quite a bit of time commenting and it means so much to me and the students. Part of our blog is being able to share with and hear from people all around the world and hearing from a class in Alabama really helps that!
The Exploreum sounds really interesting. I’m sure if we were in Alabama, it’d be a place we’d want to visit!
What part of Alabama are all of you from? I used to live down there and am curious to know if you’re around the same location!
Thanks!
Sincerely,
Mr. Avery
Mr. Avery,
I am so happy to hear back from you! You are the first teacher to respond to my posts. I was so excited! I am actually from the little town of Grand Bay, Alabama. It’s about 22 miles Southwest of Mobile. It’s really close to the Mississippi state line. Where were you from?
Dear Brooke,
We were in the Huntsville area for a bit of time. I also spent my first couple years teaching in Savannah, Georgia. So I’ve spent a little bit of time in the south. I certainly prefer your weather over ours! I hope everything is going well in the course. Thank your classmates and your professor for all the great comments on my student blogs. It’s really appreciated!
Sincerely,
Mr. Avery
Mr. Avery and class
My name is Linda Hunter
I am a student at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama.
Dr.John Strange is my professorin EDM310 and this is a belief comment about wonderful job you and students are doing in desinging and creating a blog for other students like to read.
You and your students are doing a Awesome job, the student that had a very created blog to me were Jaden about LINSANE, I did not about this person until reading his posting.
And now that I have seen your posting about different I will be visiting some of them here in the State of Alabama.
Thank You Again
Dear Linda,
Thanks for your comment! We really appreciate all of your kind words! It’s so important to us to be able to hear from people all around the world and receiving comments from the southern U.S. means a lot!
Earlier we learned about all the regions of the United States. What are some facts you can share with us about the southeastern part of the United States? Thanks!
Sincerely,
Mr. Avery
Mr. Avery and class,
My name is Leslie Fail and I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I really enjoyed reading your class blog. It looks like you all had a great time at the science museum. I liked the pictures of the electricity experiments and the dinosaurs. Did they mention where the other complete sets of Triceratops bones are located? Keep up the good work with the blog. I look forward to checking back in often to see what other wonderful things you are learning.
Dear Mr. Avery,
I had such a great time on the trip. My group saw so many great things. We saw so many things and my group was just in one wing. My favorite part was when we saw the Ring of Fire. That was so cool! What ever was white on me it would glow. I wished we could have stayed longer. π
Thank you so much for taking us to the Museum. I just can’t wait until we go on the next trip.
From
Alli W.
Dear Mr. Avery and Class,
That field trip was the best one I have ever been on! It was so fun to see all of the cool artifacts and different things around the museum. I can’t wait to go on our other field trips later on in the year! Thanks for taking us!
~ Emma W.
Dear Mr. Avery,
I can’t wait to see that math movie on circumference! Before you taught the subject of circles to us, I never would have thought how much more there was to circles than what we learned in kindergarten!
P.S: The field trip was so much fun and I cant wait for the 2 later in the year! One of the benefits to being a 6th grader, 3 field trips instead of just 2, plus the end of the year video/slideshow! Also, When Mr. V cooks the hamburgers and hot dogs on the back of his pick up truck at the end of the year as well!
Sincerely,
Molly!
Dear Mr. Avery,
Thanks for the reply. It really is too bad they took the musical stairs out! I hope they’re just under construction because there was a sign saying that they’d reopen or start working again on May 13th. Or was it March? I really didn’t read it that thoroughly. I guess I should have. But I also really enjoyed the movie. There was some weird parts though. But I guess that’s their culture!
And, so now we are on vacation! YAY! I liked the movie we watched, Tangled, though I’ve seen it before. I still enjoyed it! I’m glad we got popcorn too. And I am glad we got to share our prize for winning Homework Battleship with the other class!
Sincerely,
Molly
Dear Mr. Avery and class,
Seems like you guys had a lot of fun on your science field trip. The photos are really cool.
I like the dinosaur photos. I also like the video when you guys were going through the waves. Thank you for sharing your adventure!
From,
Ghilea in Miss B’s class
Dear Mr. Avery,
I am really happy that you got a new post up on the blog. Not a lot of people from our class have commented on the new post yet. My favorite part about the field trip was the OMNI theater. My second favorite part was about the GIANT gecko. It almost looked like an alligator!
Your Student,
Frankie
Hi Frankie,
Glad to see you commenting so often. That’s definitely one way to earn yourself your own blog. I should have a few new posts up within the next week. We have a new math movie that my homeroom shot today and I also wanted to get one up about the Spelling Bee. It was incredible how long it lasted!
I love the Omni Theater. I hadn’t been in forever so it was nice to head in again. I really enjoyed the movie too. I think it tied in perfectly to what we learned about in science.
I agree on the giant gecko. It was definitely similarly shaped to an alligator. That thing was huge!
Enjoy your vacation.
Sincerely,
Mr. Avery
Dear Mr. Avery and Class,
What a wonderful adventure you had at the Boston Museum of Science! Your photos and movies are so well-done that I feel as if I was there too!
My favorite part was watching you as you moved, or undulated through the wave! Another thing I really enjoyed was viewing the complete skeleton of a triceratops!
I am really impressed with your work using the ipod touch. We just received one for our classroom, and I look forward to exploring all the ways to use it!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Ranney
Third Grade Teacher in California
Dear Mrs. Ranney,
Great to hear from you! We’re glad you enjoyed our post. This was one of the favorite field trips that I’ve personally been on.
We just recently received our iPod Touches too. Their are so many great uses for it. We’re still trying to explore new ways!
Hope you’re having a wonderful year so far.
Sincerely,
Mr. Avery
Dear Mr. Avery,
The field trip was so much fun. It was too bad the musical stairs were broken, I really wanted to show Hannah! And I really like the Animotos the other class made on the iPods. They have awesome music and awesome pictures. I had so much fun and it was cool to learn interactively!
Sincerely,
Molly
Dear Molly,
I had a blast on the field trip! It’s one of my favorite ones that I’ve been on so far. I think they took the musical stairs out. They used to be white and now they were just normal stairs. I used to love running and jumping down those too!
I really liked their Animotos too. I think they came out wonderfully. It was a great way to share everything we saw throughout the day.
Sincerely,
Mr. Avery
Dear Mr. Avery,
The trip to the Museum of Science was so fun! The best part that I had was that I got to see the animal show. I like to watch the animal shows because I always like to see what the animal is and to know what the animal’s habitat is, what is eats, were it lives, and what it does to survive.
From,
Kelsea R.
Dear Kelsea,
I enjoyed the animal show too. It was so interesting to learn about the tree shrew. I didn’t know much about it and thought it was extremely interesting to find that it had its own category. I hope you have a great time on your trip!
Sincerely,
Mr. Avery
Looks like a great trip! We went to our nearest science museum on a trip last year – LIFE at Newcastle – it’s about 50 miles from our school. But is it the BEST Science museum in the UK? You’d think the best might be in London, but I think Glasgow’s Science Centre should take that accolade… what’s the best Science museum in the US? Australia? The best you’ve visited?
Mrs M
A Room with a View, UK
Dear Mrs. Monaghan,
We had a great trip! It was so much fun. It was the first time I took a class there but it certainly won’t be the last.
Sounds like your science museum is great as well! What are some of the best exhibits there?
Sincerely,
Mr. Avery
Dear Mr. Avery,
I loved the videos and pictures of your class’ adventure to the Science Museum. It looked like so much FUN! I liked the part when your class got in the spaceship. I liked the pictures of the chamelion. I thought they looked cute. I hope you all had a great time. My favorite field trip was at the D.I.A ( Detroit Institute of Art). The people that came where the 4th grade teachers and our art teacher. My favorite art piece was a sculpture. It was a person painted a light green with silver tears on it.
Cyber High-Fives,
Mrs. Moore’s student, Claire π
Dear Mr. Avery,
We really enjoyed this video because it was entertaining and educating. I also enjoyed the pictures of the dinosaurs and the videos of what was happining. This made us think of the time we went to the meuseam. We went to the Detroit Institute of Arts with our 4th grade teacher. My favorite part was the dinosaurs. We want to know where you guys were at the time?
From,
Emma and Jaylon
Techie Kids
Dear Mr. Avery and class,
Earthquakes are very interesting! I think I remember reading about you guys being in a miniature earthquake. Am I correct? In our science class we are learning about the solar system. We are about to finish our projects for it! We are measuring the diameter and drawing them on pieces of paper. I hope you guys learn lots!
From,
Jackie, a Techie Kid
Dear Mr. Avery,
Wow, that is very cool… going on a science adventure!
I bet it was exciting. We kind of do the same in school, sometimes. We have activities, and we are learning about our solar system.
From,
Autymn a Techie Kid
Dear Mr. Avery,
Happy Valentine`s Day! I`m loving your science blog! It was so interessting! Plus your science videos were Fantastic! I really enjoyed them because my favorite subject is science. I like when you were specific and told where you could find more information. You should make more!
Sincerly,
Maddy a Techie Kid
Dear Mr. Avery and class,
Your Science Adventure sounded so fun! Science is one of my favorite subjects! The big dinosaur bones would have been my favorite to see. I also saw the Avery Bunch video. That was great! I love coming onto your blog to read your newest things you have been working on or going to!
Happy Valentine’s Day,
Rachel
Techie Kids
Dear Mr. Avery,
Your field trip looked so fun and Electric. What was that chalk board that could draw its self? And the songs, did you rap them or sing them or somthing. They were the best. Was the wave thing moving or were they?
Sincerely,
a Techie Kid
Rachel
Dear Mr. Avery’s class,
I went to this cool museum and it was an outside museum. This great museum was called the Henry Ford Museum. It’s a great museum and great for the whole family. I liked the model T’s and the horses. I hope I can go there soon.
Sincerely,
Zach
Dear Mr. Avery class,
We are going to a sports and entertainment place at the end of fifth grade. It is going to be fun. Where did you guys go in fifth grade? I like your picture`s they are wonderful. The heat camera is wonderful. It can make you green and red, and white. It has cool science stuff to learn. We learn about other states in social studies.
Sincerely,
A Techie Kid, Holly
Dear Mr. Avery’s Class,
I loved looking at those wonderful pictures! I have to say, that heat camera was pretty snazzy. I went to a mueseum where you could stand up against a wall, and someone would press a button, and it would take a picture of your shadow! you would then walk away, and look at your shadow which is frozen against this big white wall. But it had a lot of science there too!
Sincerly,
Jenna :]
A Techie Kid
Dear Mr. Avery,
I thought that the animotos were really nice. My favorite part was in the beggining when there was a lot of birds! I have never been to a science museum but I’m sure it would be a blast. Did you like going on that field trip? If you could would you want to go again? Did you hear about the Earthquake that happened in Haiti?
Sincerely,
Monique A Techie Kid
Dear, Mr. Avery’s Class
I like the new facts you posted, do you guys remember the earthquake that happened in Haiti? I think that was one of the biggest earthquakes in the U.S. What was the most interesting earthquake you saw on tv or heard?
Sincerly,
Ryan a Techie Kid π
Dear Mr Avery and Grade 6
What an excellent day you all had. You are lucky to have the museum within easy traveling distance of your school.
Your post prompted me to go on-line and explore the pages of our national Museum of New Zealand – Te Papa Tongawera. The museum is in the North Island, in our capital city Wellington. There is a great earthquake exhibit there that I visited with my own children years ago.
Here is a link I found about a very early earthquake recording device!
I think you will find it very interesting.
Regards,
Mrs McKenzie
Whoops, half my sentence cut out as I put in the link.
The link is to information about a very early earthquake recording device!
Mrs McKenzie
Dear Mr. Avery,
I really liked the prehistoric part of the museum. That makes me think I am going with my aunt and my cousin to a museum to spend the night! It’s called the Greenfeild Village Museum. It’s going to be really fun!
From,
Mrs. Moore Techie Kid Gavin
Dear Mr.Avery,
I had so much fun at the Museum of Science! So far it is one of my favorite field trip yet. My favorite parts were the electric show and the heat camera. I hope we have more field trips as fun as this one.
From,
Morgan π
I am impressed with the use of iPod touches, I enjoyed the animotos. I particularly liked seeing the pendulum drawing patterns in the maths section. It looks like a magnificent museum, I wonder how far from the museum your school is?
Best wishes
Mr E
Hawes
Dear David,
Hello! The museum is a lot of fun and is nearby π It is located in Boston and we live about 1 hour from there. Boston is my favorite place to go in Massachusetts and then school of course π Have a nice day!
Your Blogging Buddy,
Alyxandra