the zoo
- a wildlife sanctuary
- a local park or wooded area
- an aquatic center
- a museum
- the library
- a national or state park
- around the school
I also researched some safety tips for taking a fieldtrip. I found a few that seemed important for all field trips at all ages:
- Explicitly discuss field trip behavior rules with your students beforehand
- Give your students a learning task ahead of time (keep them on task)
- Choose parent volunteers/chaperones wisely!
- Make sure you have all necessary medications
- Arrive at school early on field trip days
- Give your chaperones the tools they need to succeed
- Be proactive and think ahead when dealing with challenging students
- Count all day
- Do a "debriefing" with students when you return to the classroom
- Write "thank-you" notes after the field trip- chaperones and hosts
I think field trips can be a lot of fun! I remember going on field trips when I was in school and looking forward to going to the pumpkin patch, a local museum, the zoo, etc. And field trips can provide a source of realia and knowledge that cannot be acquired through a textbook. However, teachers need to make sure that they are prepared for them.. Although they aren't going to be teaching in the classroom that day, they need to keep certain things in mind. First of all, teachers are always teaching; although students are having fun on a field trip, they should still be learning content and this trip should tie into the standards. In addition, a well thought-out and prepared field trip will run much more smooth. The chaperones and teacher will have an easier time controlling the students and staying on task.
http://k6educators.about.com/library/weekly/aa040101b.htm
http://k6educators.about.com/od/classroomorganization/a/fieldtrips.htm
Wow! You found awesome information. I love that all of the field trips you mentioned are not only science based, but can be linked to other content areas as well: around the school can be linked with citizenship, going to a museum can be paired with history, and going to the wildlife sancuary can be turned into a writing activity!
ReplyDeleteGreat information!! I remember going on most of the field trips that you listed. I loved field trips! I feel that students are more actively engaged and excited about the content when on a field trip rather than sitting in a classroom. Thanks for the great saftey tips as well.. I never really thought about those before!
ReplyDeleteVery nice, field trips were always my favorite, and I think I learned a lot from them.
ReplyDeleteEmily- this is a nice post. You may want to consider linking to some of the resources that you found when you make future posts.
ReplyDeleteEmily,
ReplyDeleteI like your suggestions and strategies you have presented for elementary school student science field trips. I too enjoyed them as a young boy.
However, I am becoming worried that field trips will be less and less common due to increased costs and low amount of district money. In addition, with our crazy legal system it seems like it could become a hassle to set up field trips. I'd be curious to know if there is a decline in field trips over the years and/or how much more or less of a hassle it is setting them up.
As a future teacher, I'd love to go on a field trip every week. In fact, when I was completing my undergraduate degree at UW-Green Bay, I was taking a resource management strategies course and we were required as a class to visit local industries to see how they comply with environmental regulations. It was a great learning experience. Some of the places we went were the Green Bay Sanitary Sewerage Facility, Sanimax (Formerly Animax), EnCap, a farm, and more
Emily,
ReplyDeleteField trips are a great teaching experience. I think field trips can be incorporated into EVERY subject. Brandon made a good comment about how schools are cutting budgets, and field trips are usually considered non-essential (I disagree). My question for you...how will you go about convincing your administration of the benefit of a particular field trip? What will you require of your students after the trip (reports???) to demonstrate they actually brought something home from the experience.
I'm not questioning the value of field trips, just preparing myself for the time when I have to justify the time and expense of the field trip.
I think some of these field trips can be done very cost effective- depending on the area in which you teach. Going to a museum or aquatic center may be a bit more costly, depending on transportation. I guess I would explain to administration that field trips are necessary for students (it gives them a much better understanding of a subject than reading it from a page in the book). To do "an experiment", you could have a class one year complete everything from the book and other resources. You could have the following year's class go on the field trip and compare each class's understanding of the topic. This could be shown through projects, journaling, assessments, and even a follow-up. During the following school year, ask random students from each class to explain what they remember about that topic. I would be willing to guess that, if implemented properly, the students who went on the fieldtrip will remember more about the topic.
ReplyDeleteI understand that students forget the majority of the information that we tell them, but if experiencing something hands-on or in person will help them remember, why aren't we putting forth the extra effort? n my mind, even if 3 students out of 16 students walk away understanding and showing a new interest in the topic, then the field trip was worth it. If teachers are expected to teach EVERYTHING from a textbook and the students forget everything about the topic a week after we teach it, then why are we wasting our time...?
Emily-
ReplyDeleteNice post! I think that field trips are so much more interesting for students to learn and become engaged. When I was a sophomore in high school, I remember my physics class taking a field trip to six flags to study and reinforce the concepts of forces and motion. It was more of a culminating activity for us to reflect on what we learned about forces in motion, and was an incentive for students to do well in the class.