One dark and stormy morning a few weeks ago, a few brave souls ventured into the rain to accompany 145 middle school students from Calhoun Middle School, a local Title 1 school, to the new Perot Museum of Science and Nature in Dallas.
One of these chaperones was We Denton Do It's own Glen Farris. Farris even went as far as to sleep in his chaperone T-shirt the night before to prepare for the event. Pajamas be darned! There were kids to accompany! Denton City Councilman, Kevin Roden, also played the part of chaperone that day. He biked from his house to Calhoun Middle School. Talk about setting an example, an appropriate one at that. Not only were these 6th graders making a trek from Denton to Dallas (many of whom had never even traveled out of Denton County Lines), but they would be using exclusively public transportation and their own beat-up Air Jordans to do so.
The trip was made possible by 6th grade science teacher Nick Amendola, who utilized a grant from the Denton Public Schools Foundation, donated train tickets from DCTA/DART and donations from several local small businesses in order to fund the event.
It took the cooperation of teachers, administrators, parents, business owners and involved citizens, but the day went off without a hitch. All of the students came back unharmed, in one piece, and a little more knowledgeable about dinosaurs and space.
We were pleased to have our favorite videographer, WDDI's own Jordan Smith, able to tag along to capture all of the magic on video. These are the kinds of things happening in our community that we here at We Denton Do It love to see – different parts of our city coming together to collaborate and educate.
Check out the video above and then plan your trip to the Perot via public transit if you haven't already done so.
This trip was made possible with the help of:
DCTA I DART I DENTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION
DAN'S SLIVERLEAF I DENTON PRESBYTERIAN I LITTLE GUYS MOVERS
PRINTED THREADS I SPUNE PRODUCTIONS I WE DENTON DO IT
The song for the video was graciously gifted by our talented friends to the south - Air Review. Their song "America's Son" can be purchased on itunes here.
