On October 3rd, RMA’s 6th graders took a field trip to Wilmington, North Carolina. This trip was primarily geared at supplementing their history and science classes while also being a fun way for the new Middle School students to bond with each other.
The first stop on the trip was Fort Caswell in Oak Island, North Carolina. The students were divided into three groups after lunch, rotating through different stations. One took students on a historical tour of Fort Caswell. The students learned about how the Native Americans occupied the area during the colonial period and how the fort operated during the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. The next activity was dissecting a squid; students labeled the different external and internal parts of the squid’s body and then removed the pin bone and used it to write with the squid’s ink! This station was Kallen Wright’s favorite station because he enjoyed pulling the beak (which is essentially the mouth) out of the squid. The last station let students kayak through the marshes, which was Finley Miller’s favorite. After their activities, the sixth graders spent some free time playing mini golf, volleyball, and basketball. The students then had dinner at the camp cafeteria before going ghost crab hunting (which is where you hunt crabs at night with flashlights) and cooking s’mores on the bonfire to end their night!
The next day, students played in the ocean a bit as they attended the Ecological Marine Adventure program in Surf City, which let them participate in net fishing; they caught small fish and other sea creatures, getting a close-up look at this wildlife. The sixth graders also learned about the importance of sharks to our oceans and saw horseshoe crabs, sea urchins, and stingrays in addition to meeting a 30- year-old ball python named Petunia. The students then went to downtown Wilmington where they were able to go souvenir shopping before boarding a sightseeing cruise down the Cape Fear River to learn about some of the historic waterfront buildings and the Battleship North Carolina.
This trip was a new experience for the 6th graders as this was their first overnight trip. They got to experience a new sense of freedom which was one of Audrey Lockhart’s favorite things about the trip. This trip was successful in Mr. Herbert’s eyes, as he says, “My goals for the students were for them to learn a lot about our coastal environment and some NC History. But above all else, have a great time and,” he jokes, “not get into too much trouble.”
This trip was a great start to the school year for RMA, but it is not the end of our fun trips! There will not be another big trip until February, but the Lower School classes have some fun day trips this fall, such as 3rd grade’s trip to Richmond Zoo on October 17th and 1st grade’s excursion to Hill Ridge Farm on October 18th. For more about RMA’s field trips, see our archived article “Field Trips: Where and Why We Go” by Juhee Desai ‘24.
