Get Ready to Learn
Discovery: Why are discoveries important?
Think of a trip you may have taken recently or within the past year. Or maybe it’s a trip you hope to take one day. This could be a trip to a friend’s house or a relative’s house, a trip to a new state, or a trip to a new country.
Regardless, this trip has to be to a new place and not one you visited before. In other words, you discovered a new place — to you.
For this activity, remember what it was like to see new things, new people, and new scenery for the first time with your own eyes. Here are a few questions to get you started:
- What place did you visit?
- How long and how far did you travel to get there?
- Did you see or experience anything new along the way?
- What differences did you immediately notice about this place that were different from where you live?
- What differences took you a few days to notice about this place that was different from where you live?
After answering the questions above, reflect again on the place you visited. Mainly, reflect on the influence this new place had on you. Remember that we can take experiencing even small things for granted…so think hard. Here are a few more questions to wrap this up:
- How did visiting this place then influence how you feel about it now?
- How did traveling and visiting this new place make you feel?
- What was one unique thing about this place that helped you remember it immediately?
- In what ways did making discoveries in this new place change how you viewed it (these can be good or bad or a combination of the two)?
- In general, why is it important for people to experience new things and new people?
Things don’t just turn up in this world. Somebody has to turn them up.
James A. Garfield
