Museum of the American Revolution

For our Honor’s class field trip, we took a trip to the Museum of the American revolution in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At 9:30 A.M. We went to the A&S building and hopped on the bus to Philly. For the majority of the drive I decided to spend my time finishing a book that I was almost done with. The drive took about an hour to get to our destination. Once there we got our bracelets and were let loose to enjoy the museum and the surrounding area. My friends and I spent the first part of the trip looking at all the exhibits.

How the museum was structured was that it was set up like a timeline of events throughout the entire history of the American revolution. From the beginning of the rebellion of the colonies to the end, with America gaining its independence, so it creates a cohesive experience rather than an exhibits put at random. At the end it also had the message that the American revolution is still continuing and happening today. Interspersed throughout the museum there were multiple different viewing areas for videos that showed an overview of one part of history. One of them depicted the representatives working and debating the Declaration of Independence. There were also event theatres which had built in effects that increase the atmosphere of the video. There was one that simulated a famous battle between the Americans and the British. They had flashing lights and the floor rumbled with the sounds of gunfire and marching. One exhibit that I found particularly interesting was the exhibit depicting George Washington’s tent because it seeing an important piece of history and the presentation before hand was incredibly moving and powerful.

After we finished looking around the museum we went to get some fresh air and walked around Philadelphia. We ended up walking along the pier, where I took some nice pictures of the surrounding areas, and we stopped for a quick snack at Rita’s where I bought myself a cookies and cream milkshake.  Afterwards, we headed back to the museum and got back on the bus to Stockton.

Day of Service

For my first community service event at Stockton I went to Stockton’s “Day of Service” event. When I first arrived I selected a blue name tag and was put into the blue group. We got to go to the first activity in the campus center’s event room, to do different arts and crafts projects for different organizations. Since I’m not the best artistically, I decided to volunteer to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a homeless shelter. I haven’t made PB&J sandwiches since elementary school, so it took a little bit to get the proportions just right. I found this work to be very relaxing and rewarding since our group made a lot of sandwiches by the end of the session.

After that we went to the campus center’s main hall and were, once again, allowed to choose what activity we wanted to do. So I went down to the room for “Books Without Borders.” When we got there they were waiting for a new shipment of books, so instead we went into the hall to rip up old cardboard boxes to make box stuffing material. This was a very methodical and relaxing activity that I really enjoyed. Afterwards my fingers were killing me for a little bit.

The next event was working an assembly line to make food supply kits for people in countries who are dying of starvation. I was in charge of just putting the little packet of vitamins and minerals in the bag at the start. About near the end I switched with the person who handled the bag by holding it in place while the other people in my group filled it with soy, rice, and dried vegetables. In total our group made 10,600 meals, which was a tad over the goal. I felt really good after doing all these service activities and enjoyed them all. My favorite activity was the PB&J sandwich making since it was the most relaxing out of all of them.