On January 18, students of the North Canyon International Baccalaureate (IB) Program took a field trip to the Musical Instrument Museum. A few weeks prior to the trip, near the end of last semester, the IB Council suggested that students in the program go on a field trip after the semester ended. After some discussion over a few days, it was decided that they would spend the school day at the MIM.
On the day of the trip after first period, IB students gathered with Mr. Case and Mr. Harshfield in the triangle then left for the MIM. After a short trip, the students were met by tour guides who led them into the museum itself. For the next few hours, they were guided across the
museum and presented with thousands of years of rich, musical history.
MIM.org claims their museum has a collection of “more than 7,500 instruments from more than 200 world countries and territories,” and it’s easy to tell. Every corner of the museum had a plethora of musical instruments, some familiar to a Western audience and some completely incomprehensible. Many instruments were from hundreds or even thousands of years ago, presented alongside descriptions that recount its culture’s unique use of them. These presentations would give tourists a deeper understanding of the many similarities between all human cultures throughout history and how history continues to rhyme today.
After the IB students departed from the museum around noon, they traveled to the Desert Ridge Marketplace to eat lunch. From there, they split up into groups to eat and discuss what they experienced at the MIM. When they finally converged again about an hour later, however, a few students returned with more items they arrived with. Finally, the students returned to North Canyon and finished seventh period with a deeper understanding of musical and human history as well as, in some cases, an emptier wallet.
