Learning Bank # 11:MAKING THE MOST OF COMMUNITY RESOURCES AND FIELD TRIPS

                            -Field trips in the formative years are one of the most important things teachers can provide for their students. As we all know, children learn by doing. They remember what they have personally experienced. In addition, concept development is optimized through active, explorative experiences. Field trips are a type of experiential learning that gets children away from the traditional classroom setting and into a new mode of learning. They can be as simple as taking a class of children out on the school grounds for a lesson in observation, or as detailed as an out-of-state visit to a particular field site. Field trips not only expand children's learning and experiences by providing them with hands-on experiences, they also increase children's knowledge and understanding of the world in which they live.

                          -The recent fuel crisis in America has forced most school districts to reevaluate the instructional importance of field trips in light of rising fuel costs and, in some cases, depleting fuel supplies for bus fleets. The current standards-driven accountability movement has also had a significant impact upon our school leaders, who cherish the limited number of instructional minutes teachers have with children. The nation's goals seem to maximize standardized testing preparation. This article addresses the positive instructional impact of field trips and focuses on 5 major components of the field trip experience: value, logistics, planning, and health and safety issues. It also presents the findings from a national survey conducted by two undergraduate students at the College of Charleston, Katie Wise and Jamie Lee Vandetti. The purpose of this survey was three-fold: (1) to solicit feedback from nationally recognized field trip sites regarding their experiences with successful visits by students; (2) to compile data to reflect the opinions of field site coordinators for successful field trips, and (3) to make recommendations for teachers on how to plan and implement successful field trips.