It’s August 31 today and we are celebrating National Heroes’ Day in the Philippines.

In the past, my family and I would usually go on field trips to celebrate holidays or historical events like this one. But, since we are on quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we could not go out of the house for a field trip.

So, I’ve decided to have a virtual field trip with our boys to the first-ever banana catsup museum in the world! This was built by Nutriasia and the Mind Museum. It was open for field trips and tours before but it is temporarily closed due to the pandemic.

Let me share with you what you and your kids can expect from this virtual field trip.

You can use a desktop, laptop, or android or IOS phone to do the virtual tour. Here is the link to the site.

There are four (4) exhibits in the museum: the History of Banana Hall, the Maria Orosa Hall, the Manufacturing Hall, and the Banquet Hall.

In the first exhibit, you will learn about bananas. Do you know that the banana is a flowering herb? It’s not really a tree. Do you also know the most popular kinds of banana?

The second exhibit is the Maria Orosa Hall. This exhibit introduces Maria Orosa who is a chemist, scientist, inventor, and war heroine. She is most famous for her invention of the banana catsup. But that is not the only significant thing that she did. She also invented the palayok or clay oven to help those who do not have electricity in cooking their food. She helped people learn how to raise poultry and plan their meals to fight malnutrition. She taught people how to preserve food. She was the first to make macapuno and freeze mangoes to sell them abroad. She also invented Darak which helps combat Beriberi. She was part of Marking’s Guerilla. She helped feed many guerillas and prisoners during the war. She died in 1945 in Manila during World War II while working when she was hit by shrapnel during a bombing. She may have lived a relatively short life but she made numerous contributions to the country. You may read more about her here.

Although my eldest and I discussed her story already last school year, we read and discussed her story again today so that I can introduce her to my younger children and teach them that we also have female heroes.

In the third exhibit, you will learn how the banana catsup is made from harvesting to bottling and labeling.

The last exhibit is the Banquet Hall where you can see the different kinds of foods paired or eaten with catsup.

The virtual tour lasts for around 10 minutes only. But it can be longer if you will let the kids explore and move the mouse to check out the other areas that can be seen and by discussing more details about Maria Orosa.

There are questions being asked at each exhibit and it would be good to encourage the kids to answer these questions to check if they were listening or if they remember the facts that were mentioned.

There is also a downloadable activity sheet that you can print and let your children answer after your virtual field trip or tour.

Nothing beats a real hands-on field trip. But for now, we will have to content ourselves with a virtual field trip. And for me, this virtual field trip on National Heroes Day is just perfect!

If you are homeschooling for the first time this school year, I invite you to join the Facebook group that I founded and manage to help parents in the education of their children in the new normal. The name of our group is Homeschooling Parents Support Group PH.