3 Field Trip Ideas for the Back-to-School Season
"Field Trip" are two words every kid gets excited over
Getting to leave school during the daytime, eat lunch on the grass, and use their ‘outside voice’ is any kid’s “Best Day Ever”, but for the teachers in charge… not so much.
Educators, we feel your pain. Planning field trips can be hard, especially at the start of the new school year. With so many schedules to coordinate, budgets to work around, and children to wrangle, it’s no wonder they’re difficult to plan, and even more difficult to execute. Yet, the benefits of field trips are undeniable.
Field trips connect classroom lessons to the outside world by presenting concepts through a variety of stimuli, which caters to different learning styles, and can especially empower students that struggle with traditional learning.
They also allow socialization outside the classroom, which helps create long-lasting friendships, and shapes students into more empathetic and tolerant individuals by encouraging communication between different groups.
This upcoming school year is an especially exciting time for students. It’s the first time in years they can return to a (mostly) normal school cycle–but with all big transitions, there will be plenty of hurdles. To prepare for the inevitable awkwardness of returning to a classroom, students need common spaces like field trips to reconnect and rebuild relationships with one other.
Our friends at Explorable Places similarly believe in the power of field trips. With their digital platform, they created a master hub for searching and sorting through local field trip ideas, allowing educators to find the perfect venue to compliment their students’ needs. Filtering through ideas is made easy using their user-friendly digital platform, and there are no pop-up ads to deflect or accounts to create.
With this easily navigable search tool, we found three field trip ideas that are perfect for the transition back to school, centered on education, leadership, and team building. Take a look!
The Wonderscope Museum offers hands-on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) education to young children and adolescents. Kids spend weekdays solving secret missions, playing with color theory, and performing science experiments, while also being given plenty of opportunities to interact and socialize independently. (Plus, teachers and paraprofessionals get in free!)
For adults and kids in 5th grade and up, the Tucker Leadership Lab’s guided outdoor courses are perfect for breaking the “new school year” ice. From ground challenges to climbing the 45-foot Outlook Tower, your group will learn essential skills like communication, teambuilding, and mutual responsibility, while also crafting memories and relationships that will follow into the classroom.
During the summer and fall, Powell Gardens offers a variety of programs for youth between grades K-6 centered on subjects like science and engineering. Kids start the day with captivating educational activities, and spend the rest of their afternoon touring over 1000 acres of gardens and nature trails, packed full of native and exotic plants. Not your style? Public exhibitions, festivals, and small group classes remain available year-round, so learners of all ages can take advantage of what the Gardens have to offer.
Together with Explorable Places, we at UKC are committed to helping students and teachers reach their goals. Through KC Field Trips, we work with partner organizations to support educators and providers via the following services:
- Curating field trip recommendations
- Providing booking assistance
- Offering step-by-step guidance
- Digital resources to further enhance experiences