Planning Effective School Field Trips For Elementary Students

Field trips for elementary school students are valuable contributors towards improved learning, motivation, and student social interactions. Unfortunately, they are often underutilized in the support of student learning due to several factors: often teachers do not know how to use field trips to their best advantage, often planning field trips is time consuming and difficult, teachers are pressured to justify field trips in terms of links to measurable educational standards, and preservice teachers seldom are instructed in their effective use. To address these concerns, a guidebook for preservice and current teachers has been developed. In it, research based teaching strategies for learning in informal learning environments and instruction for planning the logistics of a school field trip are presented