A properly facilitated field trip can be fun, educational, and rejuvenating whether the destination is a museum, park, or a zoo. The successful field trip will depend on a high degree of organization. It isn’t difficult if the planner follows the following steps.
Pre-Trip Planning:
- Visit the proposed destination yourself. Take notes and ask questions.
- Put the proposal in writing and submit to school administration.
- Include curriculum goals to be achieved through the field trip.
- Supply exact student and chaperone numbers.
- List the mode of transportation to the destination.
- Itemize all associated costs.
- Give the date of the proposed trip as well as a possible alternate.
Transportation and Costs:
Determine if the school system can dedicate a bus or van to be used to transport the students. If not, call local bus companies that offer charters and obtain estimates. Submit the lowest estimates to school administrators as the principal will most likely be the one to sign a contract with the company. If selecting a non-system bus, be mindful of deposit deadlines.
Overall costs will include transportation, entry fees (if any) at the field trip destination, and meal costs if the excursion will take all day. Determine if students will be asked to bring bag lunches or if other arrangements will be provided: does the visiting facility have a cafeteria? Add all costs together and divide by the number of participating students to obtain the per student cost of the trip.
When reserving and/or confirming with the destination site, and there is an entrance fee, ask if chaperones are non-paying. Many sites that charge admittance fees allow free spots based on the total number of students. These ratios will vary but usually equate to one free adult per every ten students.
Prepping Students for the Trip
After obtaining required documents such as parental permission slips, prepare the students for the experience:
- Tie the pending trip into one or more daily lesson plans.
- Develop specific trip-related activities that can be used at the site or as post-trip exercises.
- If applicable, show a brief video about the destination.
Trip related activities can be a form of treasure hunt or can be a self created worksheet that asks students specific questions about possible exhibits that can be answered as a fill-in-the-blank.
Day of the Trip and Post-Trip
Divide all students into small groups supervised by the chaperones. Each chaperone should be responsible for one small group. Assign one student to act as a group leader, given the responsibility of keeping the group together. This fosters leadership and lightens the chaperone burden.
Take pictures of students at the field trip destination. Pictures of students having a good time will go far in selling future field trips, especially to the same location. Additionally, pictures can be used as reinforcement exercises when back in the classroom.
Post-trip activities should include student feedback. Such feedback will better help the teacher to plan future trips and possibly realign on-site activities. Submit information on the field trip to school administration, the schools newspaper (if applicable), and the school Yearbook.
Summary
Teachers should never shun field trips. Field trips take the classroom to new levels of educational experience. Students look forward to field trips because it is a day out of school. But making the trip both fun and educational will justify missing the day. Field trips can be more instructional than many lesson plans confined to the four walls of a classroom.
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