Field Trip

Today the kids and I went on a field trip to the Nissan Plant in Canton, MS. They don't do alot of tours and ours was scheduled through a friend of a friend deal. This plant has been burned by another "christian" homeschool group and wasn't real thrilled about setting one up for another group. the other group just never showed up for their scheduled tour and never called with any explanations. So, we were up against the reputation of a different group.

We were all there in plenty of time for the tour to start exactly on time (we were all fearful of casting a bad light on all homeschoolers, so we weren't going to be late). Our tour started with 2 short films about the plant and the painting process...they don't let you in the painting area. then we were equipped with safety glasses and headphones and boarded the trams. The tram drivers were great at explaining everything we were seeing and what all the workers were doing. Most of the assembly line workers stopped their jobs and turned and waved to all of us. We waved our way through that huge plant. It really felt like we were in a parade, we just needed candy to toss to the workers!

This plant manufactures 5 different vehicles including the Altima and the Titan Truck. The process from stamped autobody parts to finished vehicle takes about 16 hours. We saw most of the steps being done. One of the most fascinating was watching a cab and a truck bed being joined together.

After the tour, it was back to the meeting room for questions and answers. W had 2 tour group guides and they told us that we were one of the best behaved groups that had come to Nissan. Way to go kids. Our group was about 50 people and the kids were ages 10 - 18.

No pictures because recording devices of any kind were prohibited. And they didn't give any free samples...not even a voucher toward a new car! Does that sound fair? Doesn't good behavior count for anything?