When Are Field Trip

s

Beneficial…

…And How Can They Best Be Used As a

Supplemental Resource?

www.wsc.ma.edu

FieldTrips

What For?

What Kind?

How Do They Help?

How Do You Choose?

What For?

The definition of a field trip is “an expedition, as by a group of students or research workers, to study something at first hand (Collins, 2009).”

Field trips provide the learners with visual examples of the subject being studied and physical opportunities to be directly involved in a process being presented.•

What Kind?

For proper planning of a field trip, the teacher must look at the subject matter and determine what type is the most feasible - virtual or real.

If distance or other specifics make a physical visit cost-prohibitive, a teacher should look into a pre-designed virtual field trip, or consider creating one.

How Do They Help?

• Field trips make a real world connection between abstract knowledge and firsthand understanding of a concept. A student might understand the principles of an idea, but visiting and participating in interactive learning reinforces knowledge on a separate and more effective level.

• NC History students can mentally visualize a Native American hut, but the actual living experience is heightened greatly when an in-person visit is made during cold weather, and bring into reality the exposure to elements that took place during those times.

Photos courtesy Meredith Jones

Click here to organize a field trip to Town Creek

Or here to view a

Cherokee War Dance

How Do You Choose?

When making the determination between virtual and real world field trip, the main elements to consider are time and cost.• Can the time be spared from the classroom that will be needed to travel to, from and

fully experience the trip?• Is this a cost-effective and affordable for students field trip?

If the answer to either or both questions is no, a virtual field should be strongly considered. With modern technological advances, virtual field trips are now impressively interactive, and result in a comparable educational experience.

For students living in or near the Raleigh, NC area, a field trip to the Capital Building is an example of real-time field trip that should be required by all Civics instructors. However, a visit to explore former home of George Washington would not be possible for most of those same students, making a virtual tour an acceptable substitute, which can be seen by clicking on the arrow below.

How Do Field Trips Supplement?Although most students can mentually visualize historic buildings, or gain adequate understanding of various painting mediums from pictures, there are some areas in which real-time field trips cannot be substituted.

From time-to-time, hands-on field trips come to the school, alleviating the strain of fundraising to cover the cost, or having to forego completely due to indigent students.

DESTINY is a UNC funded in-house, hands-on science field trip that travels to NC schools, bringing science curriculum to students.

Click the arrow for more information on what DESTINY delivers on its bus.

What Else?

Pre- and post-field trip activities can assist with the promotion of cross-curricular activities.

Many locations provide opportunities for multiple subject learning, such as visiting a museum. In that one trip, areas covered include:

• Art• Geography (Starting point and destination location, and travel route)• Math (Calculating cost of trip and per student average)• History (Comparing and contrasting social influences on types of art

studied)

Specific planning details can be obtained by viewing the helpful checklists located on the field trip page of the Camp Silos web page at http://www.campsilos.org/excursions/hc/fieldtrip.htm

http://www.createdesignsolutions.com/globe_graphics.html