Field Trips and 21st Century Education
By Ari Moskowitz
Field trips have come to be an integral part of education in the 21st century. From museums and science laboratories to historical monuments and even amusement parks (for physics), field trips are a great way to learn outside the classroom. But, one subject often falls by the wayside when it comes to field trips and that subject is math.
Where could a math class spend an entire day learning math? Would a geometry class go to a bridge and stare at its triangular structure for five hours? Would a calculus class go down to the sewers and analyze the rates of change of the liquid?
Why would a math class go on a field trip? Huntington High School math teacher Lynn Hendricks recently answered that question when she went with her AP Statistics class and faculty colleague Monica Racz's AP Calculus students to Deutsche Bank in the financial district of Manhattan. There the group, along with Joan Lenhert, who retired last year as a Huntington High School math teacher, learned how statistics plays an integral role in foreign exchange, fixed income and equities trading.
Though learning about math in the real world was the intention, this trip far exceeded anyone's original expectations. Senior Alexis Weitzner summarized the sentiment of many of her classmates when she said, "It was the best field trip I have ever been on."
The day began with a rush hour train ride followed by an even more congested subway ride down to 60 Wall Street, where Deutsche Bank's U.S. headquarters is located. After being ushered to the foreign exchange floor, the Huntington contingent was seated in a conference room where it heard three speakers describe the different aspects of their jobs.
Jason Shell, managing director and head of North American foreign exchange trading and sales explained how he uses histograms and normal distributions to predict currency and stock fluctuations.
"Jason Shell made finance seem funny and relatable," said senior statistics and calculus student Samantha Greenidge. He ended his talk on an interesting point regarding morality. Mr. Shell said that whatever you do in life you must follow your moral compass: "It is obvious what is right and what is wrong; do what's right."
The next speaker, Chris Churchman, a foreign exchange derivatives trader, was only a half a generation older than most of the students and quickly connected to the teenagers. He explained the concept of derivatives and how the math we learn in school can one day make us a lot of money. "Chris' demonstrations and examples showed how finance is applicable to real life," Ms. Weitzner said. A former Oxford University professor of mechanical engineering, Mr. Churchman engaged the students and kept their attention.
The session of talks ended with Hans Ephraimson, managing director of structured sales, who fielded any questions students had about the new things they had just learned and then led the group on a tour of the trading floor.
"The trading floor was truly a unique experience," senior Lauren Bialkowski said. "I had never seen anything like it. It opened my eyes to the real world application of math."
After leaving the financial center, students and teachers enjoyed a pleasant bonding experience during lunch in City Hall Park. Students say that an often unnoticed benefit to class field trips is the bonding that goes on between classmates and teachers who may have never socialized outside of school. The teenagers believe such experiences improve the class environment after the field trip, "not that the AP statistics class needed any improvements to its classroom dynamic," one student said.
Judging by student reactions, the math field trip was overwhelmingly successful in its goal. "It (the trip) was an experience unlike any other," a student said. "It broke the stigma about math being boring."