Elizabeth Rowell and Crystal Engles are teachers at Lake Cormorant Elementary School. Both are involved in teaching gifted children and last school year were involved in a field trip with their students to Disney World.
The field trip was for an educational purpose, however, as the trip took them to the Disney Imagination Campus East Coast Campus. It’s a destination the Lake Cormorant students have reached four times since 2018.
“Teachers are always looking for a way to ignite learning or different ways to transform the classroom to something new, exciting and engaging,” Rowell said in a blog posting about their trip.
“Our students look forward to this from second grade to when we bring them here in fifth grade,” Engles explained.
According to the Disney Imagination Campus website, a unique curriculum and learning environment provides opportunities for creative thinking, and exploration with the help of some Disney magic.
“It is our mission to provide students with the tools they need to express themselves creatively and academically and to prepare them for real-world challenges,” the website states.
“They’re not going to remember when they learned division or who taught them division, but they’re always going to remember learning about Newton’s Laws of Motion that they saw incorporated into these rides at Disney,” Rowell said.
In the blog post, Engles noted that another benefit of the field trip comes from a chance to visit Disney’s iconic theme park by students who may not otherwise be able to enjoy the Disney experience.
Engles and Rowell will be presenting their story at an upcoming National Association for Gifted Children conference. Both are members of the NAGC.
