Officer Eric Swenningson gave students a virtual tour of a police cruiser and showed them all the equipment he uses during a “field trip.”
Students in Sarah Taylor’s fourth grade class at Yale Elementary School in Ariel went on a virtual field trip to the Woodland Police Department using Google Classroom and webcams last week.
While working to come up with innovative ways to keep her students engaged, Taylor came up with the idea of a virtual field trip to the Woodland Police Department.
“I’m really thankful for our police department for taking the time to do this for our students,” Taylor said in a news release. “The class loved it and will be mailing thank you notes and pictures to our wonderful officers.”
Woodland Police Chief Jim Kelly and officer Eric Swenningson used a webcam to welcome the students to the department and showed them around the entire facility. With Chief Kelly working as the cameraman, officer Swenningson served as the tour guide and showed the kids the department’s holding cells, evidence lockers, armory, fingerprint station and the detectives office. Chief Kelly and Swenningson also walked students through the equipment Swenningson takes with him on every call, including his vest, handcuffs, baton and sidearm.
Students got a funny surprise at one point during the tour when officer Swenningson opened a closet door to find a practice dummy standing in the closet.
“This is ‘Bob’ the department’s practice dummy,” Swenningson explained to the kids. “We use Bob to practice different techniques, however, it’s also become a bit of a tradition to move Bob around the department to surprise other officers.”
Kelly and Swenningson even pulled a police cruiser right outside the office so students could receive a tour of the police car.
“This is my ‘real office’ and where I spend most of my day,” Swenningson said as he showed students the laptop he uses to run identification and process tickets, the tower radar detectors and radio systems and the cruiser’s lights, horn and siren.
At the end of the tour, students had a question-and-answer session with Kelly. Students asked about how to become a police officer, whether the department had any K-9 officers and a wide range of other questions. After thanking Chief Kelly and saying goodbye, the students shared what they learned with the class and had a brief show and tell.
Taylor has already started planning the next virtual field trip for her students. “I’m going to reach out to the fire department,” she said. “A parent of one of my students is a firefighter for a different city so he’s thinking about giving us a tour, too.”
Organizing virtual field trips and other ways of connecting socially has been a focus for Woodland teachers.
“We meet as a class at least once a week which begins and ends with chaos as all the students say ‘hello’ to one another,” Taylor said. “We make sure to take time so students can do show-and-tell, read aloud, and do other social connections because relationships are important at every age; I miss my friends so I know my students must miss their friends, too.”
To learn more about how Woodland Public Schools continues educating students and serving the community during the statewide closure, visit woodlandschools.org/home-learning-stories.
