Delaware River Trip- Rural (Cindy)

This trip to Upper Bucks County to ride on the Bucks County Riverboat and then travel down River Road to the Pedestrian Suspension Bridge and a lesson on the Canal System took an enormous amount of planning, which was well worth it! Every minute was accounted for, especially the amount of time spent on the bus. If we lost any time on the ride, it would have a snowball effect on the rest of the trip. The trip started out 20 minutes late as the bus didn't arrive on time. Add to that the driver had no idea of where were going and how to get there! I explained the time constraint to the driver, and she was eager to do her best to get us to the boat, back on the bus, and to the bridge; all the while being aware that she also had her own route to come back to at the end. This meant not a minute to spare!

Captain Dee had e-mailed me directions in case the driver didn't know the way. His directions were longer, but followed the highway that ran alongside the river. This allowed the students to experience firsthand how communities change along a river. We will re-examine this concept on Monday. The ride took us through incredible types of landscapes that a lot of the students hadn't seen before, ponds, animals, farmhouses and streams were abundant!

I had picked up 30 maps printed by a company called "Resort Maps" which depict an artist drawn aerial view of the exact areas we would be visiting. These maps are actually quite kid-friendly, they are printed in color and present life-like drawings of the area and its' landmarks from a bird's eye view. This helps the students get a perspective of location and movement, and it was a wonderful asset to have. We will be referring to this map numerous times during the course of this unit.

I had discussed with Captain Dee that we are focusing on the people, plants, animals, houses, uses, and problems of living close to the Delaware River; and he did a wonderful lesson in pointing out these things and providing ancedotal stories (a bridge that had dislodged during a flood was used by a neighboring town; a struggling 19th Century artist tricked coal boats into throwing pieces of coal at a silhouette he had constructed so that he could collect the coal -free- at the end of the day) as we floated along the beautiful river. The students were completely engaged, and were able to easily access prior knowledge from the previous lesson. He was impressed with their 'on the mark' answers to his questions.

We then drove to Bull's Island State Park, where we had a scheduled Canal lesson from a Park Historian. A Pedestrian Suspension Bridge crossing the Delaware River connecting Pa and NJ is located there. We had a quick lunch break, students crossed the bridge, laughing as they "crossed" into NJ. We experienced the special trait of a suspension bridge, the movement or bounce of the bridge that differentiates a suspension bridge from other types of bridges, again frontloading the students with experience that enhance their learning and understanding of bridges, when that lesson comes up.

The lesson on canals was good (the students were getting tired at this point), the definition of a canal as a "road for boats" and of the need for locks "elevators for boats" along the canals will be further explored in a lesson on Main Idea by me on Monday. The historian, Mrs. Vicki Chirco, gave me handouts and other materials that I can use for reading comprehension and map skills. The best part, of course, was the model of a lock and a model of a swing bridge. Models are incredible tools for allowing students to visualize what is too large or inaccessible to see. I will find other examples of visual models of these on United Streaming to further explain the need for canals, and thus locks and swingbridges.

This experience gave us the information we will need on Monday to begin writing a Sequence Narrative (different from a Problem/Solution Narrative)