Field Trips

During my years as a long-term substitute in the public school system, and years prior as a parent of children in the public school system, I was frustrated by the lack of field trips and the lack of quality field trips. I noticed that field trips were only toward the end of the school year, and were outings to places like putt-putt or bowling. Occasionally there would be field trips to a zoo or a commercial farm.

When I was preparing to open De Beau Microschool, I made the decision that field trips would be a priority. I decided that we would take at least four field trips a year. I wanted the field trips to be mixture of educational and fun. As part of my preparation, I did research to find articles to support the need and benefits of quality field trips for students. It's been over five years since that research was done. I thought it was time to update my research.

I found an article titled The Educational Value of Field Trips by Greene, Kisida, and Bowen on educationnext.org. I appreciated that the article made a distinction between culturally enriching field trips and reward field trips. That difference made an impact on me! I now knew definitions and had a better understanding of why the public school systems field trips frustrated me. The article was "the first large-scale randomized-control trial designed to measure what students learn from school tours of an art museum" (Greene, et al). The results were astonishing! The authors saw improvements in recalling details, critical thinking, historical empathy, tolerance, and interest in museums. These improvements were notably higher for students listed as disadvantaged.

That article alone is enough to solidify my thoughts and opinions regarding field trips. Field trips should be high quality and help to connect students to science, culture, and history. Yes, there should be other field trips that fall into the fun category. Examples of fun field trips would be bowling, putt-putt, or amusement parks. Students should have a well-rounded education that includes multiple well-rounded field trips each school year.

Reference:

Greene, Kisida, and Bowen. (2016). The Educational Value of Field Trips. Education Next. Retrieved from:

https://www.educationnext.org/the-educational-value-of-field-trips/