Excerpts from My Urban Expedition Journal

By April Jones

Midtown Academy, 8th grade 

My mother said that the Urban Expedition was coming up and she wanted me to go. She said it would be a good experience … she was right! But I didn’t think it was going to be. Even though I didn’t want to go, my mother made me. When the day I dreaded had come, I begged my mother to take me home. She wouldn’t. I wasn’t in a good mood that morning, and I didn’t have a positive attitude at all. When my friends were there to boost me up, however, and I met my awesome instructors, my attitude lightened up. As the day went on, I realized this trip wasn’t going to be that bad.

An important part of our everyday routine was morning meetings, where we talked about the game plan for that day and assigned six new jobs: a swellness, a journalist, two cooks, a reporter, two navigators, and two scrubbles-n-bubbles. Swellness made sure everyone drank enough water and didn't leave anything behind at the many places we visited; the journalist reflected on our day in the group journal and reported it to the group at evening meeting; the cooks’ job is obvious—they cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner (my personal favorite!!!); the reporter had to read an article from a newspaper and then report it to the group at evening meeting to maybe generate discussion about the topic; the navigators were the leaders and lead us to our sleep spot for the night; and scrubbles-n-bubbles washed out the pots and pans after breakfast and dinner.

At our evening meetings, we reflected on our day as a group.

My favorite part of the day was the afternoon activities. The first place we visited was the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM). We saw artwork from things made entirely out of toothpicks and vases made out of folded origami paper. It was really cool to see how creative people can get. We also did a fun activity called "people bingo." The object of the game was to get as many strangers as we could to initial boxes that applied to them. While at the Baltimore American Indian Center, we listened to some real Native American powwow music and saw some of their traditional powwow dancing, not to mention the special ceremony we had the opportunity to see. The people there were so involved in their culture.

I learned that working in a team is better than working by your self—and that Urban Expedition Rocks!!!