So did fellow eighth-grader Michael McCormick, who said he had an easy time getting along with his host family's two young sons and their father. The father liked a lot of sports, like soccer. A school field trip is likely to be memorable for a lifetime. And there is significant learning in that time. But, he said, just because kids hop on a bus or an airplane and travel a long way doesn't mean they're automatically going to learn.
Some sites are better than others.
He said his organization has been working with Disney's Animal World in Florida to make the attraction more of an educational experience. Both the industry and teachers defend such trips, saying that they help children realize that learning can be fun. Instead, students will learn about agricultural techniques at Epcot Center, about animal behavior at Animal Kingdom and about the polar regions at Sea World, Trentadue said. It wasn't questions about the trip's educational benefits, however, that prompted Waukesha School Board member Ellen Morris-Gutierrez to object to the trip. And that if we established the precedent of sponsoring those kinds of trips that too many kids can't afford, that's not what we want to do.