James Milkert, the Human Geography teacher, plans to bring his students to downtown Chicago to give them a better perspective on what they’re learning in class and learn the history on their city.

The students will map the location of significant, political and economical places in the city, specifically the Central Business District or “the loop,” with hopes of making concepts and learning more meaningful and relevant

“The goal is to make the smallest ecological impact possible,” Milkert said.

To get to the city, the students will walk to the Western Springs train station, and ride the train to downtown.

“Small groups will research one of the many places they will be going to get a sense of how the city is structured and to get background knowledge on places,” Milkert said.

The students will prepare their trip ahead in the classroom to map out specifically where they will go, and create for themselves a guided tour. Each group will be responsible for different parts of the trip that will take place on Friday, Oct. 23.

Milkert hopes the students will enjoy the trip, because it is a trip that he has been thinking to take for a while. The trip will hopefully become an annual trip that both the sophomores and freshman in both periods seven and eight will be able to attend.

Greta Markey ‘18 is one of the students who plan to attend the field trip. In order to leave even less of an ecological imprint on earth, she suggests to do the reverse.

“I think we should pick up trash along the way, and assure the lunches we bring are in reusable lunch bags not paper,” said Markey.

She looks forward to visiting Millennium Park and hopes to go to the water tower to learn its background history. Markey suggests that in the future of this trip, students can go to a city they aren’t so familiar with. This would encourage students to really figure out there way around, rather then relying on prior knowledge.

To be able to have the classes go on the trip, he needed it approved by two administrators and need to fill out a field trip request form.  The Social Studies Division Chair Paul Houston also needed to have it approved. Houston thought this was a good idea for a trip, and very educational.

“I believed it would be a legitimate and valuable experience for the students, tied to the purpose of the class,” Houston said.

Houston thinks it will be good the students will learn to be able to apply geography concepts learned in class in a real world setting.

With the hopes of an attendance of 44 students from both periods seven and eight, there will be only two chaperones coming along, Milkert, and a second history teacher. Milkert hopes all goes well throughout the fieldtrip, and that students have a great time.