Field trips

Field Trips

Urban Adventure Squad takes almost all of our field trips on foot or using public transportation. This helps students and educators stay physically active and engaged with their communities.

To ensure that our field trips were successful, we first visited Stokes students in their classrooms, at a time that aligned with a relevant curriculum unit, and led them through hands-on activities that offered them context on the grant work and helped prepare them for what we would learn outdoors.

Then we returned another day to venture outdoors and into the community to apply our knowledge and learn more!

Waterway Cleanup

Students visited a nearby neighborhood stream that sits on National Park Service land at 14th and Gallatin Streets, NE.
We cleaned up litter from the waterway, which leads to the Anacostia River.

As we learned in our classroom lessons, the Anacostia leads to the Potomac River, which leads to the Chesapeake Bay, which leads to the Atlantic Ocean.

Students learned about trash traps and other ways that the D.C. government and local nonprofits are working to make the Anacostia swimmable and fishable.

We discussed what we can do, every day, to help make a difference.

We also talked about future Squad swim events!

Civil War History and Mapmaking

Guest educator David Ramos, who teaches in the graphic design program at American University and who created a map of D.C.'s buried waterways (which was an inspiration for this project), explored Civil War History with Stokes School students at Turkey Thicket, the neighborhood DPR recreation center. Students were able to explore how maps were used to to aid soldiers during the Civil War.

Fifth Grade Year-End Field Trip
Anacostia River boat ride,
Aquatic Resources Education Center,
Anacostia Park litter cleanup

The Stokes 5th grade went on a final, year-end field trip. Students traveled to Anacostia Park to visit the Aquatic Resources Education Center, conduct a litter cleanup of the greenspace and parking lots in front of AREC, and take a boat ride on the Anacostia River with Anacostia Riverkeeper, a D.C.-based nonprofit organization.

Erosion and Mapmaking at
Fort Bunker Hill Park

While investigating how rain, water, and erosion affects the land around us, students from Stokes School mapped their way from
Stokes to Fort Bunker Hill Park, carefully noting how rain and water not only shape the earth but move substances like litter and pollutants throughout an area. We imagined that we were raindrops, and thought about how and where we travel.