Summer of Love Challenge Spotlight: Marshall's Discovery Park in Coloma

SfSchools Summer of Love Challenge is alive and kicking. We don't have that far to go to reach our goal, but frankly I'm hoping we can surpass it.

Today I'd like to shine a light on one of our projects: Getting Excited about the California Gold Rush

I am an elementary teacher at a school where most students are identified as socially economically disadvantaged. I want to organize this field trip so my students will be motivated to learn.

As an elementary teacher, I teach all subjects. The subject that seems to get the least priority is Social Studies. Students at my school are not learning the history of California adequately; therefore, I would like to arrange a memorable trip to Marshall's Discovery Park in Coloma, CA for my students. On this trip, students will get to visit the place that ignited the California Gold Rush. Students will visit Sutter's Mill and pan for gold, just like the miners.

The resources we need for this proposal are composition books, clipboards, Gold Rush novel, and funding for the transportation from Sheridan E.S. in San Francisco to Marshalls Discovery Park in Coloma, CA. We would use the composition books and novels prior to the trip. The novel would give students knowledge about this time period in CA. The composition books and clipboards would be used during the trip. They will use them to take notes and observations of what they see during the field trip.

Both my kids were lucky enough to attend the three-day program at the Coloma Outdoor Discovery School which featured visits to Marshall's Discovery Park. I was lucky enough to be a parent voluteer for one of those field trips. It is an excellent program that the kids loved. They looked forward to it all year, and remember it fondly even now.

This project is a bit more expensive than the other projects selected for this challenge. But I know from experience how valuable this will be for the kids at Sheridan. A two-day stay at the school would be even better, but at $130/student the cost would be prohibitive. Still, a day trip to this historic park at the culmination of their Gold Rush studies would be a wonderful gift to give these students. Please consider donating to this project, and please consider doing so via our challenge.