Artifacts, History, and America’s Pastime
After a late night last night at the Boston Pops, we journeyed out early this morning to visit the USS Constitution. We took a ferry across the Boston Harbor which was a beautiful, but chilly voyage. The USS Constitution was an amazing ship, and we had a great tour guide. We learned about the ship’s history, why it was called Old Ironsides, how it was created, what wood was used (there was a Florida connection there!), and all about its battles and life on board. Ask an 8th grader what they learned. We saw four different decks of the ship climbing through ladder wells to get between the floors. Some of us could walk without ducking, but not many…
After our tour of the USS Constitution, some of the students conquered Bunker Hill – all 300 steps! We walked across a pedestrian bridge to the North side of Boston for an amazing lunch at La Famiglia Giorgios. After this, we journeyed by train to Harvard. The campus is beautiful! Half of the students explored the Harvard Art Museum while the other half explored the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Highlights of those tours included examining artifacts with Dr. Reid including a canopic jar and coins (the coins were a favorite) as well as exploring the artwork in the museum which included Monet, Van Gogh, and Degas just to name a few. The Museum of Natural History included interesting rocks and a whole room of flowers made from glass. Tomorrow, we will return to Harvard and the groups will switch places to explore the other museum.
We finished our night with America’s Pastime – a Red Sox game at Fenway Park! It was a fantastic game that went to a 10th inning with a thrilling 6-5 victory by the Red Sox. Students experienced baseball dining with lots of hot dogs, hamburgers, pretzels, and, of course, peanuts, and Cracker Jacks!
by Janet Andreasen, parent blogger