Somerset ES mom here. At our zoo trip, each of our children got to bring home a panda cub to keep. Well worth the field trip fee.

So pathetic. When MY school, Westbrook ES, took a "zoo" field trip we went to the National Zoo and then personally repatriated kangaroos back to Australia. well worth the 40 hour round trip flight.

Anonymous wrote:Somerset ES mom here. At our zoo trip, each of our children got to bring home a panda cub to keep. Well worth the field trip fee.

Oh, Somerset poster, you should retire now in glory, because you will never be able to top this effort.

Somerset ES mom here. At our zoo trip, each of our children got to bring home a panda cub to keep. Well worth the field trip fee.

My child took coach buses to the Natural History Museum (in second grade) and it was $15 a child. Definitely pricier.

Maybe the zoo needed 7th graders to figure out how to not kill all their animals!

Maybe they were donated by a parent. My boss donates busses for his children's school for field trips.

Anonymous wrote:Trust me, my kids have gone on those trips and there is nothing educational about it -- makework and not tied to curriculum. Even if it was not, why would a 7th grader be doing a report on a kangaroo?

Why wouldn't a 7th grader do a report on a kangaroo? Do people learn everything there is to know about kangaroos by sixth grade?

Anonymous wrote:Trust me, my kids have gone on those trips and there is nothing educational about it -- makework and not tied to curriculum. Even if it was not, why would a 7th grader be doing a report on a kangaroo?

so once you learn the very basic stuff about animals you are done learning about them? let me guess you kid goes to one of the schools that did poorly on the math test????

Why wouldn't they be doing a report on a kangaroo? I am happy to hear of research being done from from sources that is not just pulled off the web.

Trust me, my kids have gone on those trips and there is nothing educational about it -- makework and not tied to curriculum. Even if it was not, why would a 7th grader be doing a report on a kangaroo?

each group of students were assigned a certain animal they had to do a report on, video, on camera, type interviews with other students about their habitat, their history etc etc.

it wasn't a let's go to the zoo and play trip.

wow peopel jsu thate to hate i am convinced.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I counted 7 (but may have missed some) coach buses at Westland Middle for what the calendar says was a field trip. Maybe if it's a long trip and they need bathrooms, but this says they were going to the zoo which is all of 5 miles away at best. What a great use of financial resources!

Why do you say that? Maybe the coach buses were cheaper.

Sometimes they are in fact cheaper. Also more available than school buses, and have storage underneath if kids are taking backpacks or whatever.