The
Circle Georgia trip is an annual, week-long adventure taken by Darlington's eighth-grade class. Designed to help reinforce our history, science and English curriculum, it also provides our students with a chance to better understand Georgia's unique place in American history and culture.
This year, we spent a week traveling the state and visiting a diverse group of museums, historical sites and wildlife habits. Highlights of the trip included a day spent in the
Okefenokee Swamp, a morning excursion to
Cumberland Island, the sobering tour of the
National P.O.W. Museum/Andersonville prison camp and a visit to historic Old Ft. Jackson near Savannah, Ga.
This is an unbelievably valuable experience for our students. It was
truly awesome to see them engage with history outside of a classroom setting. The opportunity to take something that can seem very foreign in a textbook and give it a concrete definition and shape is one that helps cement the lessons I try to impart on a daily basis. Seeing students hold a replica Civil War musket, walk the ruins of the Carnegie family's Dungeness mansion and speak with a WWII bomber pilot who was shot down behind German lines in Vichy France really helped to confirm my belief in the importance of this trip to our eighth-graders.
Click here to read student blogs about the Circle Georgia Trip posted Feb. 25 and 26.
