Posted in Field Trips

Today our homeschool group had a field trip to our local museum where we learned about Captain George Vancouver and the discovery of Vancouver Island :)

The first part of our lesson was learning about how the explorers were able to chart the new land that they found by using a lead line. If you are not familiar with what a lead line is it's just a heavy piece of lead tied to a rope that was dropped over the side of the ship until it hit the bottom of the ocean floor.



You can tell when it has stopped going because it no longer pulls heavily on the rope once it is sitting on the ground. From there they would inspect the symbols or knots on their ropes as they pulled the line back in to determine just how deep that section of the ocean was :)

Each of the children had a graph that they filled out showing the depth around the balcony of the museum. What a great little exercise! As we were outside the children learned that there were three major players when Vancouver Island was discovered in 1792. The Russians, the English, and the Spaniards and each of them hoped to find the Northwest Passage. It was a confusing time for the Native Americans who had already been on the land for 10,000 - 12,000 years. There were so many foreign languages being spoken that they couldn't understand a word of and the Spanish were erecting these HUGE wooden crosses all over that represented their claim to certain areas of land.

I think the highlight of the whole program was when the children got to try writing with quill pens and ink :)



There were two stations set up and everyone had their own quill pen and paper where they wrote entries into their ships log just like Captain George Vancouver would have done in his log while charting the waters around Vancouver Island on his ship aptly named the Discovery.

Quill pens were usually made from goose feathers that had been boiled to clean and remove all of the oils from them and then while still soft the tips were shaped and trimmed into the traditional quill pen tip.

To finish off our visit the children were given a 'treat'. *grin* I'm not sure exactly how much of a treat it was though. LOL. They all got to try a little bit of sauerkraut!

 When the explorers and their crew were out at sea for months on end their food sources were very limited and they had little to no access to fresh fruit. With the absence of vitamin C many of them developed scurvy and died from it as a result.

There were some remedies that they tried to use to prevent it such as boiling down oxen bones until they rendered a gelatinous goop that was thought to cure the scurvy, but sauerkraut proved to be the most successful preventative since it is very rich in vitamin c. The problem was that it was not very tasty and the crew wouldn't eat it!! So Captain George Vancouver tricked his crew into eating it! He made it known that only the highest ranked officers were allowed to eat the sauerkraut and that it was off limits to the rest of the crew. Well this of course made them extremely jealous that they weren't allowed it and with George's plan working perfectly he pretended to give in to their pleas for it and thus his entire ship's crew was eating something vital to keeping scurvy at bay :) Pretty smart guy!

I hope you had fun following along with our Voyage of Discovery field trip :)

Blessings,

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Comments

Posted by smallworldathome.blogspot.com

What a fantastic field trip! I would have loved to have seen the kids try sauerkraut!

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Posted by bbullard

What a great trip, and of course, your pictures never fail. You have some awesome talent, and I was looking through your blog and Cathy's over at BasketFlat, and thinking that I can barely get my almost brand new digital to work! I'll get there!

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Posted by ThreeLittleLadies

I'm glad that you and your children were able to experience it!

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Posted by moreofhim

What a fun field trip! Wow, I really learned a lot just reading your post. I had no idea that sauerkraut was so rich in vitamin C! I really love sauerkraut, so that's nice that it has that added benefit! Of course, at your children's age, I wouldn't have liked it either. It's an acquired taste.

Thanks for sharing all this info. I really learned a lot!

God bless you - Julie

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Posted by jenn4him

Thank you for taking "us" with you on your field trip. I've always admired those who were brave enough to explore this big earth.
Jenn

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Posted by Andreamom2boys

That sounds like an awesome field trip! It is so great to be able to let the kids learn in that way. I know my boys love that kind of stuff.

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Posted by Anonymous

Just thought I'd drop by and say hello! Hope to see you posting again soon!

homeschooljourney.wordpress.com

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Posted by Kellie

We did a field trip once where we got to write with quill pens...fun!

Not sure I've stopped by since I've moved. You can now find me at www.thepiratemom.com .

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Posted by mamakaren

How much fun! your post and photos are a delight to see and read. I've missed stopping by. Their "treat" was a lesson tool, but I agree with you that it wasn't all that palatible for little children. (-:
Blessings, Karen

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