The Sixth Year of Kids Discover the Trail! Is Underway!
Although the program began in 2005 as a once-a-year field trip by Ithaca elementary classrooms to their assigned Discovery Trail (DT) sites, KDT has grown into a creative and collaborative academic experience for teachers, students, and DT educators alike.
Find out more about KDT's Program Goals and Grade to Discovery Trail partnerships.
In the News
Gary Stewart of Cornell Community Relations hosts the weekly cable television show, East Hill TV. In May 2009, his guests were from the Discovery Trail in celebration of the trail's 10th Anniversary. Kids Discover the Trail! is a collaboration of IPEI, ICSD, and the Discovery Trail.
Program Update
The core of the program includes student visits to a Discovery Trail museum or the library where they receive instruction from the museum or library educator. In addition to the special curricular programming that is planned to suit the grade level state standards, KDT experiences also have a social component. Visits to DT sites are made by two classrooms from different elementary schools at the same time. The goal is that students get to know those from different geographic and cultural parts of our district so when they meet in middle school there is more understanding, respect and connection. In the fifth year of the program, almost 3000 students or nearly 100% of the students participated. Participation has been growing each year as funding becomes available and as teachers hear about the program and sign up for it.
Teachers and Educators Recognized
A reception was held at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology on November 29, 2007, to recognize and thank the Ithaca City School District teachers and the Discovery Trail educators who conduct the program. Special thanks was also given to all the generous donors who are making this program possible. Adam Bauchner, a fifth-grade teacher from Beverly J. Martin School, gave a first-hand account of the impact KDT visits have on students.
The evening concluded with two special announcements. First, the Ian Alberta Memorial Fund, established last year, will make its first gift this spring to support the KDT fifth-grade partnership with Cayuga Nature Center. Second, June and Leon Holt of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, have made a gift of $100,000 to the Johnson Museum of Art to establish an endowment to support the KDT pre-kindergarten partnership with the Museum.