FieldTrip

FieldTrip is a term most commonly used to describe organized educational excursions outside the classroom, designed to enable students to observe real-world environments, artifacts, or processes related to their curriculum. Field trips may be conducted by schools, universities, museums, science centers, or community organizations and can focus on science, history, culture, nature, or industry.

Planning for a FieldTrip typically involves aligning the excursion with learning objectives, selecting an appropriate destination, and arranging logistics such as transportation, scheduling, and permissions. Safety and accessibility considerations are central, including risk assessment, supervision ratios, emergency procedures, and budget management. Tasks often include pre-visit activities to prime learning, structured on-site activities or worksheets, and post-visit assignments to consolidate understanding and assess learning outcomes.

In practice, FieldTrips vary widely in duration and scope, ranging from a single class period to multi-day programs, and may be local or require travel. They are frequently integrated with pre- and post-visit work, enabling students to connect on-site observations with classroom study, discuss findings, and reflect on what they learned.

FieldTrip is also used as a proper noun by various organizations and products. For example, a mobile app named Field Trip operated for several years as a Google project that surfaced local stories and points of interest; it was discontinued in the late 2010s. The term continues to be used broadly for both educational excursions and brand names in related fields.