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Tampa Prep history students visit Boston

Tampa Prep students toured the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston.

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Special to TBO

Published: November 12, 2009

Updated: 11/13/2009 04:15 pm

TAMPA - Tampa Preparatory School eighth-graders recently traveled to Boston in keeping with one of the students' key ambitions: to "go beyond."

The students have studied the city in their American history class. Teacher Mike Fowler elaborates: "Everything we study about is covered in the itinerary of the trip. Teaching about a place is one thing, but to actually go to the site and look around and feel it makes the experience 1,000 times more meaningful."

The students visited Lexington Green and the Old North Bridge in Concord where the first battle of the Revolutionary War took place. In Concord they learned about the town's literary history. In Sleepy Hollow Cemetery they saw where Thoreau, Emerson, Alcott and Hawthorne are buried. They hiked around Walden Pond and had a moment of silence and time for writing in their journals at the site of Thoreau's cabin.

Students wrote throughout the trip and used their journals when they returned in discussions and essay writing in class.

At the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, students toured the facility and reflected on some of Kennedy's quotations. In Salem they visited the Salem Witch Museum and toured the House of the Seven Gables. A climb to the top of the Bunker Hill Monument provided a fantastic view of the Boston skyline.

While in Boston students hiked the Freedom Trail and visited the gravesites of Paul Revere, John Hancock, Sam Adams and the victims of the Boston Massacre. At each of the gravesites they left small memorial plaques they had designed.

Through the years, Fowler has been contacted by other travelers who visited the historical gravesites, read Tampa Prep students' memorial plaques and visited a website to contact the teacher and students.

Shortly after the eighth graders and their teachers returned to Tampa this fall, Fowler received this message:

"Hello, Mr. Fowler.My name is Anita Sarrat, and I'm a Houston-based Continental Airlines flight attendant. My absolute, hands-down favorite city is Boston, and I was on a layover there yesterday.I always visit Sammy Adams and the boys (and girls) at the Granary and came upon the plaques that were set down by your class. I was so impressed that I decided to check out the website that was written on the back. Wow!! Now that's how history should be taught!"

The eighth graders' trip to Boston trip is one of several excursions Tampa Prep students undertake, including a trip to the Florida Keys by seventh graders in the spring and a trip to the mountains of North Carolina by the junior class.

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