Outdoor field trips, tips and tricks…
This fall I organized two field trips. The first was 96 early college sophomores, and the second was ~270 9th grades going to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Here are a set of tips to make field trips go more smoothly.
- If your trip is a hike, bring a cooler of ice and plastic bags. I’ve needed the ice the last three field trips. (insect bites, rolled ankles, cactus thrown at the back of a student)
- Put a sign on each bus to label the bus. We took 7 buses and I labeled the buses 1-7 using cardstock on the dashboard to keep kids straight.
- Call ahead (Obviously?). But I state it here, because about half of the time, there is another group at the Dunes that didn’t call ahead. Then, they have to deal with our big groups walking through their small group data collection.
- Give driving directions to every bus driver. We had 7 buses all travel together. This takes a long time.
- Bring apples (or alternative easy/cheap food). Students forget lunches and you have the opportunity to make a difference to hungry students.
- Plan one trip for the Fall. There is nothing like a field trip to establish rapport with students. This rapport pays dividends throughout the rest of the year. Also, it breaks up the grind between Labor Day and Thanksgiving.
- Work the bus. Don’t sit in just one spot. Ask kids about the music they listen to, last field trips, and break up make out sessions.
- Provide a folder of necessary information for each teacher going on the trip.
- The folder can contain…
- Bus lists for every bus
- Lists of students who are getting a lunch from the cafeteria
- Itinerary
9. Put alternative locations on your permission slip. We once had to turn a group of five buses around because of an unexpected 4 inches of snow. We couldn’t go somewhere else more local because it wasn’t on the permission slip. Therefore, we just went right back to school. That sucked.
10. Feel good. There is a good chance this is the first time some of your students have been where you are taking them. Getting students out of school is a good thing, this helps them transfer the knowledge they are working on constructing in their brains.
Other Fall highlights to be blogged about later…
- Field trip to St. Joseph River for data collection.
- Data collection at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and classroom follow up..
- Family field trip to Pennsylvania to see Pope Francis.
- Labs: Enzyme Inquiry, agar cube diffusion, corn seed growth, fly population growth, celery osmosis demonstration, potato homeostasis.
