UW-Green Bay to host record Phuture Phoenix tour days Oct. 14 and 16
UW-Green Bay will host its 11th annual Phuture Phoenix field trip days Tuesday, Oct. 14 and Thursday, Oct. 16, welcoming 1,460 area fifth-graders who will explore campus and experience life as a college student.
This year’s field trip focus will be hands-on history, offering students a first-hand glimpse of experiential learning in a University setting.
UW-Green Bay’s signature Phuture Phoenix program partners with schools that have high percentages of students from low-income families and encourages students to graduate from high school and pursue a college education. This year’s field trip boasts the highest number of students to date. The program has hosted a total of 15,781 fifth-grade students since it began in 2003. To help support the record number of participants, there will be 268 UW-Green Bay students serving as role models and group leaders for the day and 90-plus faculty members participating.
Students and their mentors will visit classrooms, residence halls, the Cofrin Library, the Kress Events Center and other parts of campus during the tour days. Numerous UW-Green Bay faculty members have special planned activities for students and teachers alike.
As part of the hands-on history theme, the UW-Green Bay History Club will give a short presentation on Viking history, followed by hands-on demonstrations of cold smithing, hand spinning (spinning wool into thread with a spindle), wire knitting (how the Vikings made chains for hanging their jewelry), and whipcord braiding (making braids by twisting long threads suspended from the ceiling). The History Club will be making Viking wire knitted chains for each of the 200-plus Phuture Phoenix students who visit the presentation. UW-Green Bay Associate Prof. Heidi Sherman, Humanistic Studies (History), said she looks forward to sharing the history-themed activities with Phuture Phoenix students.
“We hope it will show the fifth-graders that the college experience is fun and that learning about the past takes many forms,” Sherman said.
Phuture Phoenix Day is a coordinated effort to inspire academic success and alert children to educational opportunities that are available to them. College prep starts early and the Phuture Phoenix field trip offers students a first-hand look at the necessary steps to pursue and attain higher education goals. It’s an important program, said Keta Quiver, fifth-grade teacher at Oneida Elementary School.
“I think the Phuture Phoenix program gives students one of their first opportunities to tour a university and experience college life,” she said. “It shows them where their hard work and dedication to their education can take them in life.”
New to the Tuesday field trip this year is an interactive opportunity for students to visualize their future at UW-Green Bay. UW-Green Bay student Courtney Maye is organizing the activity that is inspired by the work of artist Candy Chang, on utilizing public space by engaging and provoking individual thought. Students will be able to write their first mock college application essay by finishing the sentence, “I want to go to college…so that I can”…on a chalkboard. The goal is to have the students write why they want to go to college in a way that expresses individuality, while giving them time to think about the reasons they would like to pursue higher education.
More information about Phuture Phoenix is available at www.uwgb.edu/phuturephoenix/.
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