FIELD TRIPS

Background

A history of field trips? If we consider the long term, we will realize that children have learned by being with their parents or placed in apprentice situations with employers for most of human history. In a sense, field trips were the norm, until the invention of formal education. I believe it was the Greeks, around the time of Plato, who invented formal schools.
Does this mean, because the history of field trips and apprentice situations is so long, that this is the most effective way to learn? What are the benefits and disadvantages of field trips? What are the benefits and disadvantages of learning in classrooms? And what are the benefits and disadvantages of apprenticeships? L.B. Sharp wrote that what is best learned indoors should be learned there, and what is best learned outdoors should be learned there.

Practicalities

Preparation:

If you take your students just one foot step off the school grounds, you are required to have parent waiver forms signed. Your school or school district will probably have waiver forms, so you don’t have to design one yourself. There is also a sample in the science curriculum guide. If you intend to do many field trips (and I would encourage you to do this, since you can integrate Physical education, Art, Science, Language Arts, Social Studies, Math – just about all the required areas of study!), have the parents sign one waiver at the beginning of the year, then send a letter home informing them of each field trip. This way, you will not be waiting on parent waiver forms for every trip.

You will also need to know what special medical care any of your students might need. Is there a student who is allergic to bee stings? If yes, you or the child should be carrying an “epi-pen”, and you or your student should know how to use it. If there is a student who has diabetes, do you have sugar or insulin on hand? Do you know how to administer it or does the child know how to administer his/her insulin? If you don’t feel confident, you should have a nurse or a parent along.

Carry extras of everything. Some children will not bring hats, sunscreen, sunglasses, or, on the other side of the weather, toques, scarves, mitts. Have spares available. Take a first aid kit, in case of cuts or scrapes. Perhaps have alcohol swipes for cleaning wounds before bandaging them. Have water available for drinking. Have a whistle to call the students to you.

Preparation for each trip:

You should have a sound pedagogical reason for the field trip. Your students should be prepared for learning outdoors. Parents should be informed of where you are going and what mode of transportation and of the number of adults per child that will be along.
You should visit the site in advance, and find any possible danger areas. Warn your students about these areas. When you arrive at the site, remind the students of the dangers and how they are to handle them. (You might want to post an adult there, to rescue children.)
Your students are, of course, prepared to learn out doors, because of the pre-trip activities you have done.

Is your trip a chance for the students to have free exploration? Or do you want them in activities the whole time? Plan according to the particular group you have. Also, SaskEd has guidelines of how many adults you need per child – specific ratios for each age. You will have some groups of students where you will want more adults than SaskEd recommends. You must use your own judgement, so long as you have the minimum required by SaskEd.

Always have the students in small groups, either for their explorations together, or for their activities. Set your groups so they are functional and so there is at least one responsible sort of student in each group. The students are “buddies”, and are expected to ensure each other’s safety.

I prefer to have activities for the students to carry out at different places at the site. If there are six small groups, I try to have six activities, and one parent to run each activity. The students rotate through the activities. This means that each activity should take the same amount of time. If one activity takes much less time than the others, you can have the students sketch or write or measure – a good learning activity that extends the action they are involved in.

Field trips are only slightly more hazardous than the classroom. In other words, with proper planning, they are not very dangerous at all. The keys to safety are: anticipation, planning, adequate supervision.

HINTS: To get enough adults, your first choice will always be parents. In some schools, or in some classes, there are not many parents available. To compensate, invite college of education students, invite college of education graduate students, offer to take student teachers and interns. Make contacts with people in your community, and invite the people there whom you know and trust.
Always, in everything you do and say to your students, let them know that you are interested in their safety and health. This will increase their interest in their safety and health. Also, demonstrate that you trust them. When you tell them how to behave, don’t then follow them around as if you are not sure they are going to do what they are supposed to do. (You will probably peek. But don’t let them see you peeking.) If you do see them deliberately flaunting the rules, you will have to find out why they think they should do this. Do they think that the rules are wrong? Why? What would be a better rule? If a student breaks the rules, it is often because the rules are not made to further that students interests.

Your school will have a budget for renting buses. It is certainly preferable, for long trips, to use a bus, rather than private cars. However, if your school has used its bus budget, you will have to use private cars. All drivers should sign forms, stating that the driver is qualified, and how many shoulder straps and seat belts there are in the car. Students who are too small for shoulder straps are the only ones who use seat belts. Once you have a grade 5/6 class, just about all your students should be using shoulder straps. You must also be concerned about air bags. As things are now (2001), air bags are dangerous for children. If there is an airbag for the front passenger, children should not sit there. The one other thing you need to know about your drivers is how much third party liability the car has. In Saskatchewan, only $200,000 third party liability comes with regular insurance. Your drivers should probably have $1,000,000 third party liability.

By long trips (in the paragraph immediately above), I mean those trips that your students cannot walk or ride their bikes to. If you are going to go on a bike tour, see if you can talk your school board into providing vests, the orange ones with the big X’s on them. They practically glow in the dark. All your students should have bicycle helmets. You will probably teach in schools where not all children have bicycles, let alone helmets. See if you can find some extra bikes and get a bike store to donate five or six helmets. You should give the helmets to the children, so that you don’t have to worry about the spread of lice. (It can be difficult to clean lice out of a bike helmet.) To collect a few extra bikes, ask parents of children who have bikes if they would be willing to donate the bike to the school after their children grow out of it. You need to know about bicycle maintenance, or have someone around who knows about bicycle maintenance. If you know, you should teach your students – how to oil their bike chains, how to repair their tires. If you don’t know, get your friend who does know to teach you and your students.

Sample Forms

Date:
Address (School Name and School Division
Address of School, and Phone Number)

Dear Parent/Guardian,

We will be taking many field trips this year. For every trip we will take, there will be a sound educational reason. Some trips we already have planned are:
___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

One important reason for spending time in the outdoors is that, in Saskatchewan, the outdoors is important, and we all need to learn how to take care of ourselves in the environment and how to take care of the environment. However, as well as this reason, each trip will have specific curricular objectives.

For every trip, you will be notified in advance of where we are going, what specific times we will be leaving from and returning to the school, and how we plan to get to our site. In the letter telling you about the trip, you will be asked to send the supplies your child will need, such as appropriate clothing, a lunch, and any medical needs your child has. For each trip, we will have an appropriate number of adults along to supervise the children.

We will need parent volunteers to help us on our field trips, and sometimes we will need drivers. Consequently, the letter for each trip will ask for volunteers and sometimes for drivers.

At this time, we ask that you sign the consent form, and that you list any medical or physical needs your child has. We ask that you contact the school if you believe your child's health needs will interfere in his/her ability to take part in the field trip.

Teacher_________________________ Principal____________________________

Consent Form

I permit my child, _____________________________ to take part in school field trips. I understand that I will be informed of when, where and how each field trip will be conducted, and may withdraw permission for my child by calling the school at ____________________________ . The information about each field trip will come in a letter which my child will bring home from school.

My child has the following special needs. I will send the appropriate medical and physical supports for my child for each field trip.

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

 

Date: ____________________________

Signature: _________________________

 

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