A New Field Research Record!

Field research is a crucial part of PCS’s place-based approach, with some of the trimester’s most meaningful learning happening  well outside the classroom walls. This spring we broke records – logging more than 20 field trips in a single trimester!

From Montauk to NYC, our students ventured into the waters and onto the shores across Long Island to seek out shipwrecks, climb to lantern rooms, visit working harbors and steer ships. Our youngest students took a private turn at the wheel of a Shelter Island ferry. EC 4/5 studied sharks up close at the aquarium. 2nd grade set sail on a schooner in Peconic Bay, and Middle Schoolers boarded a brand-new maritime training ship in the Bronx. 

Our field work experiences turn the local landscape into a living classroom. Students head out to learn directly from the people and places around them, conducting first-hand research and consulting with experts, before they return to campus to incorporate this new field knowledge into their on-going integrated projects. Along the way they grow into true researchers and collaborators, confident asking questions, capable gathering evidence, and skilled at connecting what they see in the world to what they are studying.