At our small liberal arts college, we recently introduced a field trip-based course as a requirement for all first-year science majors. This course, entitled "The Urban Ecosystem," explores various aspects of science and technology using our city (New York) as a case study. Beyond its curricular content, the Urban Ecosystem course has…

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Urban Wildlife Conservation Program invested in communicating the vital importance of wildlife conservation to urban audiences. Urban areas present a strategic opportunity to reach new audiences and expose them to the USFWS and opportunities to visit USFWS lands. Refuges close to highly populated areas provide…

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened on November 11, 2011. Located in Bentonville, Arkansas, it was the first art museum of its size in the region. Since few students had ever been to a museum, this situation provided an opportunity to causally measure the impact of a one-time art museum field trip upon student outcomes through the…

Bermuda's fragile environment is under threat. Rising sea levels due to global warming, ocean acidification, invasive lionfish, plastic debris and locally generated water pollution are just a few of the issues that should concern all of Bermuda's residents. Now, more than ever, "environmental education" should be a critical part of every…

Annual fieldtrip visits offer an excellent opportunity to engage teachers and students in learning opportunities that may not otherwise be available in their classrooms. Here we describe a collaborative project designed to support teacher engagement before, during, and after a classroom fieldtrip to a children's museum. We found that providing a…

This paper looks back at an academic-led language field trip project, now in its third year, involving ab-initio students of Italian at the University of Southampton. It considers the role of academic-led field trips in Modern Languages (ML) and it explores the underlying pedagogical approaches that were adopted to enhance students' engagement,…

There continues to be a persistent, widespread gender gap in multiple STEM disciplines at all educational and professional levels: from the self-reported interest of preschool aged students in scientific exploration to the percentages of tenured faculty in these disciplines, more men than women express an interest in science, a confidence in their…

When it comes to STEM education, the nation's K-12 public schools cannot do it all. The nature of 21st century proficiency in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics is too complex for any single institution. The good news is that schools do not have to do it alone. Museums, zoos, nature centers, aquariums, and planetariums are among the…

A summer academy is held for grade 9-12 high school students at the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, every year. The academy, dubbed the Da Vinci Engineering Enrichment Program (DEEP), is a diverse program that aims to attract domestic and international high school students to engineering and sciences (and possibly recruit them). DEEP…

In order to improve recruitment of teachers to rural schools, preservice teachers need opportunities to become familiar with rural education contexts, overcome anxieties promoted by negative stereotypes and build confidence in their professional and personal abilities. Traditional approaches involve rural practicums which are not feasible for many…

Recent studies advocate careful selection of local historic sites and recommend collaboration between stakeholders to create meaningful learning experiences for students. The author describes the efforts of a historical society, a university professor, and a local school district to develop an integrative field trip to a one-room schoolhouse.…

This report summarizes AISD 2008-2009 program evaluation results for a state grant to improve students' grades in science courses, to increase students' chances of graduating, and to increase 10th and 11th-grade students' scores on the state science test.

The Exploratorium is home to XTech, a science education program which began in 2006 and was primarily funded by a three-year National Science Foundation grant (Award # 05-25217) through its ITEST (Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers) initiative. XTech provided project-based afterschool activities in science, engineering,…

Youth violence in the city of Philadelphia, PA, has reached epidemic proportions. The majority of homicides related to gun violence is most prevalent among African American males aged 19 to 24 years. Therefore, it is essential to implement youth violence prevention programs to a target population several years younger than this age group to…

Describes how two social studies teachers designed a website in order to grant the other teachers in their school district access to the field trip database for the Washington-Baltimore area; furthermore, the idea for an elementary social studies website expanded into other projects that were also timesaving resources, such as the Electronic…