By Ryan King ’15

On Thursday, February 10, our eighth grade class took a trip to our state’s capital in Boston. Afterward we also visited the Boston Science Museum to motivate us for our big science fair at school.  The main purpose of this trip, however, was to get a good understanding of how our state and national government work. For most of us, the highlight of the trip was exploring the science museum, but my favorite part was going to the State House.

At the State House we got an “extreme tour.” We saw the main lobby which was impressive with all the old flags of the state and the nation and paintings of the important dates in the history, A couple of paintings showed the signing of various documents. One of them showed the Pilgrims arriving at Plymouth Rock. Next, we were taken to the House of Representatives, a huge vaulted room filled with many chairs. There, we were told about a typical day in the life of a representative. This was my favorite partof the tour. We also stopped by the governor’s office although he was not there. One of our representatives from Western Mass gave us a brief history of the various governors. After this tremendous tour we headed off to the Boston Science Museum.

The Boston Museum of Science was more interactive then the State House. The purpose of this part of the trip, as I have said, was to further our knowledge of physical of science and stimulate our ideas as we got closer the science fair. In the museum there were many exhibits on three floors. The main ones to see, according to Mr. Ware, were Electricity and Weather. We saw the popular Electricity Show which inspired me to build a project related to the subject for the science fair. Mr. Ware has a meteorological degree which made the Weather exhibit fun for him.  We explored many parts that showed extreme weather and how it can affect a house. We also learned about the world’s weather and how weather affects different climate zones. Then we explored magnetism, a related area. We each got to see many other exhibits on this floor, varying from space to optical illusions.

The museum was probably the more “fun” part of going to Boston, but I enjoyed the State House more. All in all, I think I learned a lot from this trip.