Friday, 8 August 2014

We joined a fieldtrip


To gain understanding of how a fieldtrip with a kindergarten runs, we joined a Copenhagen kindergarten in one of their everyday fieldtrips.

The fieldtrip was a 15 minutes walk to the local library, where the children were let free in the kids department. After the trip we did an interview with the caretaker in charge of the fieldtrip. He described the procedure when going to a larger nature area without fences. Usually the caretakers walk around the area with the children, and tell them how far they can go, according to some chosen pointers in the surrounding landscape. The caretakers locate themselves so they can keep an eye on different areas, and communicate regularly to each other how many children they have their eyes on. Also, the caretaker was saying, usually they give responsibilities and tasks to the older children, who help out.
 
We discussed technical solutions with the caretaker. He was sceptical towards a technology that would take over the personal contact and relation between children and adults. Though, he was very interested in security enhancing solutions that could give message, if a child was going away from the group.