A Journey Through Time: Our Field Trip to the Canadian Museum of History

Museum of Civilization

The timing of the @steemiteducation homework this week was perfect. The day I read that the topic was educational field trips was the same day I was taking my grade 8’s on a field trip. On Tuesday my class visited the Museum of History here in Ottawa.Formerly named the Museum of Civilization. The name change was part of a complete rebranding of the museum by the government 5 years ago. The museum shifted to having a full historical focus on Canada rather than the broader context of all civilization. In the past there was a Canada Hall, now the content throughout the museum is primarily based on Canadian history.

Some of the exhibits at the museum include:

The Grand Hall	The Canadian History Hall	The Canadian Children’s Museum
The First People’s Hall	The Canadian Stamp Collection	Tsimshian Prehistory Exhibit

There are also a wide variety of special exhibits at the museum that come and go, so there is always something new to see. The museum also has an IMAX theatre that always has something new and spectacular to watch.

The first thing that we look at when planning any field trip is the educational value of the excursion. Is this trip going to be rich in content and learning experiences? Is the content covered going to be curriculum based our grades? Whenever possible, it is nice to find venues that provide cross-curricular learning opportunities as well. For me, the Canadian Museum of History is a no-brainer when it comes to the content and educational value. I teach grade 8 Canadian History and we can pretty much find any era we want there. The second factor is the cost. When there is a high cost to field trips it becomes more difficult to make them happen. We are very lucky at our school because we have a really active parent council who does a great deal of fundraising. The parent council always kicks in money to help cover some of the cost for buses on field trips. This really helps to offset the overall cost for parents. We were able to provide this field trip for only $20. The admission alone is almost $20 per student, plus we get guided workshops and tours.

The day is very well organized and the guides have everything planned out for us. We had two activities in the morning followed by lunch. After lunch, we had some time to visit one of the special exhibits that were visiting the museum and then we would get to watch the IMAX feature. It was going to be a packed day.

The Grand Hall

Our morning started with a workshop in the Grand Hall. This massive hall is a beautiful representation of how the First Nations peoples lived and evolved. The hall was intricately designed with Native houses all along one side surrounded by totem poles form a variety of time periods and cultures. The houses are at the top of a few long curved stairs. It represents how Indigenous families would build their homes along the beach. The stairs look like waves crashing against the land. All of the totems and many of the houses are authentic and have been donated to the museum.



The Spirit of Haida Gwaii Sculpture
Sculpture History and Meaning

The workshop had students learning about inquiry skills. Students examined a variety of different historical artifacts and had to come up with questions that could help them learn more about the objects. They were encouraged to look beyond the basic who, what, where, when and why and really look at the impact of historical items. How did it advance productivity or build culture? What was the significance of the item? They were required to do some inferring based on the knowledge they already had and what they were learning as they examined the objects. These are skills that transfer far beyond history and are important in almost everything the students do. I am constantly preaching about critical thinking skills and seeking to not just know but to understand. This workshop included a tour of the First People’s Hall where the kids took a walk through Indigenous history.

Authentic Indigenous fishing hooks and lures

Following the morning workshop, we were taken on a guided tour through the Canadian History Hall. This was a great opportunity for the students to make connections between the topics covered in history class and the information and items they were seeing. As we made our way through the hall, our guide would frequently stop at different parts of the exhibit and talk about the significance of what we were seeing. It was a great opportunity for me to question the group to see what they remembered form class and who could extend on the things we have learned. There were some proud moments as some students were able to regurgitate facts and ideas that we discussed and then there were those moments that made me wonder if we had even discussed certain topics. Of course, we had but you would never have known at that moment.

Authentic Indigenous Head Dress

After lunch, we made our way to the Dreamworks Animation Exhibit. This exhibit was only at the museum for a limited time and this was the last week to see it. The hall is jam-packed with the history of Dreamworks. It has dedicated sections to each of the wonderful animated movies that we have grown to love such as “Shrek” and “How to Train Your Dragon”. We get to see and learn all about how these wonderful movies are created. Not only do we get to see the tools and products but we get to use them as well. So much of the exhibit was hands on. Kids were able to make computer-generated characters, they were able to dress up as characters and they even had a drawing centre where you could create your own comic. We could have spent hours in this one exhibit alone but unfortunately, we had to make our way to the IMAX Theatre.

The last stop on our tour was to see the IMAX short documentary called “Wonders of the Arctic”. If you have never seen or heard of an IMAX film, they are quite the experience. The movie screen is massive, It takes up an entire wall of the theatre. Watching it makes you feel as though you are almost there in the film. This particular film was all about how the polar ice caps are fading away because of the rise in global temperatures. This reduction in the size of the ice caps and how long they stay frozen is having a profound impact on the natural habitat for many species of animals. Their ability to survive is at risk due to these changes. It was a nice way to finish off the day because we have touched on global warming and the changing landscapes of the earth as part of our geography studies.

The students spent the day engaged in history and enhancing the learning they have been doing in class. It was a day where I didn't actually hear any students talk about being bored or complaining. The guides kept them busy and active at all times. From my perspective, it was an enriching learning experience for the students and well worth the cost. If there was anything I could say I’d want to change about the excursion it would be for it to be longer. I could see in my students on many occasions that they wanted to have more time to look and read as we moved along. We spent the day there and only got to experience a fraction of what is available.

Personally, I could spend hours just making my way through each section. I love to fully read through the descriptions of items and learn about what I am seeing. Many of the kids also felt that they didn’t have enough time to use all the hands-on manipulatives. The reality is, you can’t do it all in one day and this trip was focused on specific areas. I told my students that they should come back to the museum with their families. The museum is actually free on Thursday nights. It was a successful day and one that I look forward to doing with my class again in the future. I would also encourage any of you out there planning a trip to Ottawa, Canada to make sure the Museum of History in on your list of things to do.

Images: 1, 2
All other pictures were taken by me.