Disney Youth Education Series

Last week I took twenty-one eighth graders to Disney World!

     Yes, that is correct. Disney World. It was the best field trip ever! It was also the most exhausting thing I have ever accomplished, but it was definitely worth every second. 

      I love taking field trips. I love planning field trips. I love the idea of field trips. It is definitely the best way to show students learning in the real world - to make education authentic - and to demonstration that yes what we are doing in here is also important out there. Give me a group of students that will behave, and we will travel the world! Unfortunately, funding does not cover the world. Thankfully, Disney World contains small pieces from around the world and is close enough to visit!

    We are about nine hours from Disney World. We loaded the bus on Wednesday night and arrive at Hollywood Studios Thursday morning! We spent three days in Disney parks, two nights in a Disney hotel, and two night traveling on a charter bus. Twenty-one students, four chaperones, and two teachers. 

      Disney offers a wide variety of Disney Youth Education Series Programs. We had the opportunity to attend two: Imagineering: Gravity at Hollywood Studios and Global Citizenship at Epcot. My students enjoyed both programs, but unanimously agreed that Imagineering: Gravity was their favorite. They felt Global Citizenship was too long.

     We arrived at Hollywood Studios around 7:30am. Our program began at 8:30am (before the park opened! I love Disney, and getting to see Disney before it opened was magical!). Our Cast Member for the program met us outside and introduced the students to the program. He put the students into pairs and gave each pair an iPad. Students watched a short video on the iPad of a roller coaster ride. Various vocabulary terms popped up on the video when the vocabulary word was being demonstration (inertia, gravity, centripetal force, ETC). He then asked students to define each term using background knowledge and what they had just seen. This program was perfect for my eighth grade students - they had these words in science last week! It was the perfect tie in, and their faces lit up when they knew the answers. 

    As we discussed more and more, our Cast Member guide slowly moved us closer and closer to roller coasters in the park (Tower of Terror and Rock'n'Roller Coaster). He used different props and iPad videos to demonstrate the terms and guided students into thinking about these things impact the world around them and designing things like roller coasters. Students were able to ride both Tower of Terror and Rock'n'Roller Coaster. The rides were followed by discussions and science experiment examples of how gravity and imagineering are used to create the rides. 

     On our second day at Disney, we attended the Global Citizenship program at Epcot. While the first program was more hands on and interactive, this program was more discussion based. It aimed to show students how technology impacts communication, what it means to be a global citizenship, and how they can be globally responsive. In a world where communication makes connections with other countries and cultures so easy, it is extremely important that our students understand these things. 

     This program began with discussions regarding types of communication. The Cast Member used various games/ice breakers to get the day started. She also gave students translators and asked them to say a phrase in a specific language. Our school provides each student with a Rosetta Stone account, and many students were thrilled to show off how they could speak a few words without the use of the translator. 

     Soon we began to tour around the "worlds" or Epcot. In each "country," the Cast Member discussed the culture of the area, how it is reflected in the scenery at Epcot, and how bits of that culture can be seen in students' lives. She also discussed ways to be culturally responsive: being respectful of time differences when trying to communicate, trying to learning another language to 'meet in the middle' when communicating with others, understanding cultural/religious beliefs when interacting with others, ETC. 

    Students were also treated to a guest speaker from China that discussed how life in the US is different from life in China and answered questions from the students. One part of the program had student create their own symbol for a culture they invented. They then explained to the group how their culture was unique and how it represented everyone in the group. The program ended in the United States with the American Adventure show. 

     Even though I have never been as exhausted as I was returning from this field trip, I am so very happy we had the opportunity to take this field trip. These are memories and experiences we could not have gotten anywhere else!

    Have you ever taken a field trip to Disney World? Please do share!