Over spring break, roughly 100 elementary school students from across the district traveled to the Empire State Building in New York City, the pyramids of Egypt and the Sydney Aquarium in Australia – all without ever leaving Summerville.
These world travelers took part in the district’s Virtual Spring Break, an idea suggested by Windsor Hill Elementary School teacher Anne Marie Wilcox.
“A few months ago, we learned that there were going to be budget cuts in Dorchester District Two (and) many field trips had to be eliminated due to the poor economy,” Wilcox said. “It bothered me that kids had to suffer by missing out on life experiences, so I decided to be creative and explore other inexpensive alternatives.”
In addition to the cancellation of field trips, Wilcox anticipated that many children would not have the opportunity to take a trip over their holiday due to the reeling economy.
“Knowing many families are not able to travel this break, I thought it would be a good idea to set up a virtual field trip,” Wilcox said. “I hope the kids learned a lot about the world outside of South Carolina, got a taste of different cultures and had fun exploring.”
Each day of spring break, when the children would access a website created by the district’s Instructional Technology specialists, a new destination was revealed. For each destination, an array of audio and video links to the area’s museums, restaurants and other tourist attractions would enable the students to learn about the city or country that they were visiting.
Children could share their experiences with one another through a travel diary on the site, said Windsor Hill fifth-grader Nick Scapaletto.
“My favorite place I traveled to was Australia because I’d never been there before,” Scapaletto said. “It was a really fun thing to do over spring break when I would have otherwise been bored.”
Windsor Hill fifth-grader Jonathan Coste liked the fact that each day of the trip offered new, unique ways to learn about the area that he was visiting.
“There were so many different places to visit and it was a fun way to learn because there were games, quizzes and lots of really neat activities,” Coste said.
Wilcox, who has received positive feedback about the trip from children and parents alike, is considering implementing a similar program over the summer.

Contact Michael Tannebaum at 873-9424 ext. 215 or mtannebaum@journalscene.com