Day 5 (Duxford) - July 26, 2012

We had some good news and some sad news today.  The good news is that Kori, a girl in the program who lost her luggage last Friday, had her luggage returned to her FINALLY from British Airways.  Sadly though, we found out that another girl in the program, Gemma who is from the UK, had to leave because her grandmother died; we don’t know if she will return for the remaining two weeks. 

Today we were back at Duxford for some classroom instruction and lectures.  What I concluded from today was that their instruction/activities are pretty similar to what the Social Science Department in Loudoun continues to use (HISTORY ALIVE), but they call it CLOUE – Close Up Encounters.  The first lecture that we had dealt with how the British sacrificed on the homefront during WWII and what types of strategies they developed in order to survive the German BLITZ in 1940.  After the instruction portion was over, we were taken to the next room for our activity that allowed us to put some of these strategies the British used to good use.  Basically, what the museum has done is put together one big room with a variety of primary sources from 1940 (examples of the different types of clothing, food, posters, Garden, shelters, bombs used, weapons, etc).  We were allowed to walk around the room to the different sources and touch them while the instructor answered our questions that we had.  Finally, we were broken up into groups of 4, and while in those groups, we were given an artifact from Britain 1940 and we had to brainstorm as to what they artifact would have been used for.    

Following lunch, we engaged in 2 more CLOUE activities:  one that dealt with D-Day and another that dealt with a British Lancaster Bomber used in WWII.  For the D-Day activity, the teacher explained and demonstrated how they teach this to school children: 

·               each person is given a British ID card

·               the students have to read about their life and who was in it

·               then they are given the scenario and duties for the D-Day landings

·               they are given information about the boat ride to the beaches and then…the CHARGE the beaches

o   Once the demonstration is over, the teacher reads aloud a condolence letter from the Ministry of Defense to one of the loved ones from a fallen soldier.

o   The condolence letter was about one of their characters from their British ID card

For the Lancaster Bomber activity, we went to the hanger where the actual bomber rests to do this activity.  When we arrived, all of the men were given a wallet with information and all of the women were given a purse with information – they are our characters for this activity (similar to the D-Day activity).  Next, we were put into specific groups to prepare the bomber for a mission in WWII: flight crew, ground crew, weapon preparation crew, etc.  **The purpose of this activity is to help the students understand that everyone was responsible for the success/failure of a bombing mission in WWII, even though that they were not actually in the plane flying the mission.  The bomber wouldn’t have been successful without everyone on the ground putting the wheels in motion.

After dinner, we have an evening session at 7:30pm from the Imperial War Museum about what we are going to experience at the museum tomorrow in London.  Also, we are given our instructions for our departure time tomorrow for our weekend trip to London for the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games, the play that we will be seeing, and our free day on Sunday.  **Please note that there have been some changes from what I was originally told due to scheduling conflicts with everything that is happening in London with the Olympic Games.  We will now be in Victoria Park tomorrow night watching the Opening Ceremonies on a big screen and not at Olympic Park.  L  Also, we will not be able to watch a play from the Globe Theatre; we will now be watching a play at the Oliver, National Theater.

Due to the crazy activity in London over the next three days, I will be unable to update my blog until Sunday night when I will get back to daily updates.  Have a great weekend everyone and enjoy watching the next 2 weeks of the Olympics on TV.  Also, NFL training camps will be opening this weekend as well;  I know that certain people (Will Kramer) are very excited for the Redskins to show off RG3, while the Steelers fans out there (you know who you are) always are excited…we live for training camp as soon as the season ends!