Religion Field Study Blogpost
For our religion unit, our class has been visiting sacred religious spots. The places we visited include temples, churches, mosques, and more. We were told to answer a question for our unit. It was: “How is the worldview of these different religions represented in the real world?”
When our class went on the first field trip it was for the whole school day and it took place on Richmond’s Highway to Heaven. All the temples we visited were located near each other.
Up first was the Hindu temple. We were told to take off our shoes upon entering then we headed up the stairs. I noted as we headed up the stairs that there were a few big, bright, and detailed chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings. We were brought into a room with a large painted picture on wall of the walls that represents a big part of the Hindu religion. We were then brought into a large room with chairs lined up along the walls facing the front wall and the far side wall. Along the large wall there were many beautiful statues of Hindu gods. The statues showed what the Hindu gods wore and each represented what the Hindu gods were like. On the far side wall there was a set up there that was used to get legally married. We were taught about the Hindu gods, the history of Hinduism, and the Founder. We were shown some of the Hindu traditions and we were offered food at the end. I really liked the person we had who taught us about the Hindu history and traditions.
Here are some photos from the temple:
Up next was the Tibetan Buddhist temple. Upon entering, I knew this temple was going to be very well-decorated. This temple was very beautiful with so many bright colours everywhere you looked. There was a huge golden statue of the Buddha with large elephant tusks. There were cloths hanging from the high ceilings and flowers all over the room. Every little thing in the temple represented something and had a deep, important meaning to it. We were taught about the Buddhism traditions, history, founder, and their beliefs.
Here are some pictures I took in the Tibetan Buddhism temple: 
After that we went to visit a Chinese Buddhism temple and we were taught about meditation. At some points, they had us take off our shoes to meditate. They gave us a tour of the temple and we were taught a lot about their history. We were given hot chocolate and they offered us candy and some of their religious books.
In the afternoon we visited the Sikh temple. We were fed Indian food for lunch and I loved it. While we were there, there was a prayer going on so we bowed and sat and watched the prayer for a little while. We were offered candy and then we headed upstairs and we were taught about the history, founder, traditions, and Sikh beliefs.
The next field trip we went on was just for a small part of the day. We visited the Jewish temple Synagogue, and we learned a lot about how they pray. We also learned about the Jewish history, founder, and the Old Testament.
On our last day we visited a Christian church first. We learned a lot about the religion and we were allowed to explore all over the church.
The last place we visited was the Islamic Mosque. I learned so much about Islam there and it was a lot of fun.
I really enjoyed these field trips. I think it’s amazing that how during our religion unit my teachers would go out of their way to bring us to so many places so we could learn even more about religion. I learned so much about religion after these trips and I think it was really awesome that we could actually visit temples, churches, and mosques. We were offered food and we even practiced meditating to deepen the experience.