MICDS Second Graders Design Tours for Explore St. Louis

At MICDS, the year-long focus in second grade is community -- answering the question, “What brings people together?”  During their study of St. Louis, the goal is to help students understand that cities and landmarks are shared places and they have significance to the city’s inhabitants.  Recently, second grade students enjoyed a unique opportunity to partner with The St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission (CVC) on a special project. 

The students responded to a challenge given to them by the CVC to create a "kid-generated tour" for their explorestlouis.com website, under their “St. Louis for Kids” section. CVC representatives asked them to create a day-long tour of St. Louis that was creative, entertaining and informative of St. Louis' landmarks.

Students worked in small groups to develop a detailed plan of their tour stop, a persuasive paragraph explaining why visitors should choose their tour stop, and an entertaining and informative presentation about the tour stop. 

Each group chose one landmark and created activities that would appeal to children visiting the destination. They then had the opportunity to present their work to their “clients.”

Earlier this month, CVC executives Brian Hall (Chief Marketing Officer), Jennifer Hollenkamp (Director of Marketing) and Donna Andrews (Head of Public Relations) visited MICDS to hear the presentations.

Well-known St. Louis destinations featured included the Gateway Arch, City Museum, the Butterfly House, Powell Symphony Hall, Sheldon Concert Hall and the Jewel Box. The CVC team then developed a tour for the class based on their presentations.

Second grade teachers Jeff Horwitz, Amy Lamb and Kristen Kaiser spoke to the value of this project, noting, “The kids were able to form much deeper connections with our community and this real life opportunity generated much excitement and motivation to do the very best job they could possibly do," said Lamb.

Explore St. Louis clients were thrilled with the students’ work, noting in a letter to MICDS, “They all did such a fantastic job - we are so amazed at their talents.”

Information was provided by the Communications Department at MICDS.