News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACTS: Monica Hayes Ashley Cox
Outreach Director Coordinating Teacher
Education in Action O.H. Stowe Elementary, Birdville ISD
817-562-4957 817-547-2400
mhayes@educationinaction.orgashley.cox@birdvilleschools.net
O.H. Stowe Elementary fourth graders travel to Austin on
an Education in Action Discover Texas Field Trip
Fourth graders from Birdville ISD’s O.H. Stowe Elementary traveled to Austin on an Education in Action Discover Texas Field Trip January 5, 2018 to experience what they are learning in fourth grade Texas History. Students visited the Texas State Capitol and the Bullock Texas State History Museum.
During the charter bus ride to Austin, students discussed why Texans are so proud of their unique heritage and participated in activities and games in preparation for their visit. In Austin the students visited the Texas State Capitol where their legislators, The Honorable Kelly Hancock, State Senator, District 9 and The Honorable Stephanie Klick, State Representative, District 91, office. Students saw first-hand where Texas laws are made as they toured the State Capitol including the Senate and House of Representatives chambers. At the Bullock Texas State History Museum students explored exhibits about Texas’s earliest inhabitants, the Texas Revolution, and events that created our Lone Star identity. The students’ visit to the museum concluded at the multi-sensory Texas Spirit Theater with the Star of Destiny where they saw and experienced the history of our great state including a gusher exploding from an East Texas oil derrick and the takeoff of Saturn V as seen from Mission Control at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“Education in Action’s Discover Texas Field Trips are based on the understanding that the most effective way for students to learn is through experience,”stated Lacey Phillips, Discover Texas Field Trips Director. “Student activities during the Discover Texas Field Trip to Austin reinforce and supplement fourth grade Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) learning objectives with a focus on why Texans are so proud of their unique heritage.”
Education in Action’s Discover Texas Field Trips make it easy for teachers to take their 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade classrooms on organized, fun, and educational site-based learning experiences. Discover Texas Field Trip staff members handle all details, including round-trip charter bus transportation, reservations, and TEKS-based program curriculum, so participating teachers can focus on their students and making connections between the experience and what students are learning in the classroom.
In addition to Discover Texas Field Trips to Austin, San Antonio, Waco/Georgetown, Dallas, and Fort Worth, Education in Action also offers summer Lone Star Leadership Academy camps for outstanding 4th-8th graders. During the weeklong, overnight camps, participants experience significant Texas sites in Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin/San Antonio, or Houston/Galveston with Texas educators and a focus on leadership.
Discover Texas Field Trips are presented by Education in Action, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to fostering educated and involved young people. For more information about Education in Action visit www.educationinaction.org and www.facebook.com/educationinaction.
Each year, the Birdville Education Foundation supports innovative teacher grants. Last spring, Deanna Rollett Gauby, a sixth- and seventh-grade science teacher at North Ridge Middle School received a grant for dissection equipment and frogs to dissect. Gauby recently wrote, “My seventh-grade classes recently completed the frog dissection, and it was a hit! I know that my students learned more from that one lab than they had from the weeks that we spent teaching the different body systems. It was a true “ah-ha” moment for most of my students, and it gave them an unprecedented insight into the human body system. I believe it took the material that we worked on and connected it to a real understanding. Thank you to the Foundation for making their learning come alive and investing in the future of our students.
