Blog

“All real education is the architecture of the soul.”
-William Bennett, former US Secretary of Education

While the primary focus of the CAC Volunteer team over the past two months has been completing training and staffing Guest Services and Exhibit Host shifts on the floor of the CAC, the Education Guides have also been active behind the scenes.

Education Guides have been trained for three new student field trips departing from the plaza outside 111 E. Wacker. The field trips, designed and scripted by the CAC Education Team led by Angela Esposito and Rebecca Millham, represent an evolution from the previous offerings at the Railway Exchange not only in terms of route but also content.

The new field trips are more precisely focused on specific age cohorts and each provides a range of interactive activities in addition to walking conversations about architecture and the city of Chicago.

The first new tour, which began trial runs back in July, is “Chicago: City of Architecture”. This 90-minute adventure has been crafted to appeal to 4th-8th grade students. This field trip explores Chicago history through the lens of its architecture and includes iconic structures that showcase why our hometown is the city of architectural innovation and how it has grown into a world-renowned metropolis.
Highlights include storytelling and interactive conversations outside and inside six significant locations: 111 E. Wacker, the east bank of the Chicago River, London House, Marina City, the Carbide and Carbon Building, and Aqua.

Early childhood learners are the audience for the second new field trip, titled “Building Blocks of Architecture.” Kindergartners through third graders are the focus of this 60-minute outing which introduces them to the wonders and foundational elements of architecture through guided, tactile activities. This field trip stays close to our home base, beginning and ending in the plaza outside the CAC and venturing across the river for interactive activities using the Michigan Avenue Bridge, the Apple Store and Tribune Tower as our hero structures.

At each of four sites, students participate in interactive lessons. The first three activities center around core architectural themes (“building blocks”) of shapes, materials, and ornamentation and the field trip culminates by allowing our young students to use what they learned on the tour to design a new building. The field trip encourages not only conversation, observation and tactile learning, but also incorporates artistic tools including crayons, self-inking stamps, and rubber-textured mats.

The third student field trip, “Science of Architecture”, is a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) based program designed for 5th-8th graders. Education Guides lead students though a 90-minute exploration of seven key architectural structures: column, column & beam, cantilever, truss, arch, vault and dome.The session begins with 45 minutes in the Lecture Hall, where students learn about the forces of compression and tension via demonstrations of how structures work using props, posters and physical participation.

The group then heads out into the streets of downtown for a scavenger hunt to identify real world examples of the seven structures. At stops including the Old Republic Building, 225 N. Michigan, the “L”, the Chicago Theatre, Macy’s and the Cultural Center the Education Guides lead students through a series of guided questions to help them see buildings and the structural elements within them with new eyes.

A special thank you goes to Roy Slowinski, our fellow Education Guide and Docent, who has been instrumental in developing both the curriculum and route for the Science of Architecture field trip.

Now that all of our training session are complete, I look forward to seeing everyone on the floor of the CAC and all over Chicagoland during Open House Weekend.

Cheers, Bob