A Visit to the City Museum

Yours,

Li Hua

Yours,

Li Hua

6 . For many years, school children in the US have been taken on “field trips” to cultural institutions such as museums of art. Educators arrange them in the belief that schools exist not only to teach economically useful skills, but also to produce civilized young people who appreciate the art and culture. While there are parents who will take their children to cultural places in their free time, there are plenty of other children who will never have this kind of opportunity unless schools offer it. So you could say that taking school students on field trips is a means of giving everyone equal access to their cultural heritage.

However, the attitude towards field trips in recent years is changing, with the number of tours organized for school groups falling significantly in museums all around the country. The most obvious reason is the issue of finance. Because there are increasing demands on their funds, after all, computers and sports facilities aren’t cheap, schools are forced to make a difficult choice about how to spend the limited money they have. Faced with this dilemma, field trips are an obvious thing to cut since they are seen by many as too expensive.

Additionally, the nature of these field days is also changing. Schools increasingly use trips to amusement parks or sporting events as a treat for students rather than an opportunity for cultural learning. This shift could have a basis in generational differences between teachers’ reasons for organizing days out of school. A recent survey conducted among 500 Arkansas teachers showed that older teachers were significantly more likely to take the primary purpose of a field trip as a learning experience than younger teachers, who view it as fun.

Some evidence shows the trend of fewer trips may have a negative effect on children’s development. A research led by Jay Greene at Arkansas University found that students who received a tour of an art museum greatly improved their knowledge of art and the ability to think critically about art. They also display stronger historical interest and were more likely to visit cultural places in the future. The researchers warn that if schools cut field trips or switch to less educational destinations, valuable opportunities to broaden and enrich children’s learning experiences are lost.

Lifelong Learning

Yours,

Li Hua

10 . In the Hollywood movie The Martian, actor Matt Damon plays an astronaut who grows food on Mars (火星) to survive alone on the red planet.

After seeing the movie, Washington State University physicist Michael Allen and University of Idaho food scientist Helen Joyner decided to carry out a case study helping students figure out how to farm on Mars. In the case study, students had to imagine they were mining on Mars and decide how to feed themselves there before starting on the journey. They got advice from Allen and Joyner on how to select crops and take the challenges of growing crops over long periods on Mars. Students used a scoring system to select three foods to plant on Mars.

Allen found the results impressive: among 30 students, “no two people have ever gotten the same answer”, he said.

Human travelers to Mars will likely have to make use of resources on the planet rather than take everything they need with them on a spaceship. This means farming their own food on another planet, one that has a very different ecosystem (生态系统) from Earth’s.

One challenge for those who would like to live on Mars is the fact that there can be no farming tools. Like real astronauts, students taking part in the study cannot take farming tools with them. As Joyner put it to his student astronauts, “You are starting with nothing.” Besides, students also have to deal with a very limited choice of diet. “If you had to eat a single food for the rest of your life, could you do it?” Joyner asked.

But Allen believes the case study is about more than farming and eating on the Red Planet. “I’m not teaching about growing food on Mars,” Allen said, “I’m teaching about living with choices. I’m teaching about problem solving.”