I took my 20 7th and 8th grade students to Port Huron for two days! On Thursday they stopped by the Ft. Gratiot Lighthouse (it's presently closed for restorations), made vegetable soup over an open fire, dipped candles, wrote with a quill pen and made a punched tin sign at the log cabin at the main museum, participated in a robot workshop and toured the main museum, toured the Huron Lightship and then spent the night aboard the USCG Cutter Bramble!! Friday morning they toured the Thomas Edison Depot Museum and participated in an electricity workshop. The overnight on board the Bramble was amazing!!! They even had hourly rotations beginning at 11:00 p.m. I took the two rotations from 1:00-3:00 a.m. Then at around 6:45 one of my male chaperones came down from the pilot house and told the couple of us that were up that the largest freighter on the Great Lakes was coming down the St. Clair River!!!!! The freighter is 1,000 feet long! The morning was cold and damp and fog was pea soup thick, but seeing that freighter slowly sailing down the river was a memory that will stay with me FOREVER!! It was such a ghostly sight because of the thick fog. There were only 4 or 5 boys, one of the male chaperones, myself and Mike the retired seaman who witnessed the sight. Mike had turned on the radar so we could see it coming down the river. Then he said that another freighter was coming upriver. It was probably only about half the length of the first one. They passed each other just south of our ship! It was absolutely amazing!!!
My students really seemed to enjoy their field trip. They will be studying Michigan history in the second semester, but our administrator wanted her staff to try and plan a field trip in the fall if at all possible because the spring is usually packed with field trips. I only wanted to take them to the lighthouse, but when I checked the web site, I read that it was closed for at least another year. :-( I then noticed that they had several other things that I thought would be possibilities. Well, I ended up turning what was to be a 3 hour trip into a two day trip!!! It was so worth it! They will certainly remember this trip -- I hope. 8-)
A Great Lakes freighter sailing into Lake Huron from the St. Clair River
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The big black kettle contains our veggie soup!
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The Ft. Gratiot Lighthouse -- sorry for the fuzzies on the picture
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One of my students said she was going to go home and hug her dishwasher!!
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Making cornbread to go with our veggie soup!
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A working loom at the log cabin. They make rugs on it.
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Punched tin -- I made one, too!!
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A few of our completed hand-dipped candles!
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I sure wish I could walk on stilts as easily as some of my students!!
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I'm sure that writing with a quill pen makes them appreciate ball point pens even more!!
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Soup anyone!!?? It actually tasted pretty good!!
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An embroidered quilt at the Main Museum.
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On board the Huron Lightship. Notice the wringer washing machine?
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Our home away from home -- the USCG Cutter Bramble! This pic was taken on Friday morning -- thick fog! We arrived after dark on Thursday so no pics.
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What do you think of these steep stairs?! They did wonders for my bad back and ankles! NOT!!!
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Get a load of this motley crew!!!
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That's Sarnia, Ontario, Canada through the thick fog!
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The Blue Water Bridge to Sarnia, Canada. The fog was still lingering.
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