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In a time-honored ritual, that's how thousands of school
excursions, planned by thousands of teachers, hit the road
each year. They have a lasting impact. Almost everyone who
works here at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH)
keenly recalls his or her first experience in these halls.
Neil de Grasse Tyson, now director of the Museum's
Frederick P. Rose Center for Earth and Space,
tells of his introduction to the planets and galaxies
at the Hayden Planetarium. "That was the night the universe
poured down from the sky. I had been called. The study
of the cosmos would be my career and no force on Earth would
stop me. I was just nine years old." Carl Mehling has worked
at the Museum for 11 years. Now, he works in the
National Center for Science Literacy, Education, and
Technology, and is a paleontology enthusiast. He remembers
standing in front of the museum's T. Rex when he
was five or six and telling his mom, "I'm going
to work here someday."
Not every introductory visit is life-changing, but
such stories are far from exceptional. In "School Field Trips:
Assessing their Long-Term Impact," a study which appeared
in Curator magazine in September 1997, authors John H. Falk
and Lynn D. Dierking establish that, "Even after years had
elapsed, nearly 100% of the individuals interviewed could
relate at least one thing they learned during an
early-elementary-school field trip, and most could relate
three or more
things."( :1)
Just as significantly, most younger
visitors remember much more than prosaic details like the smell
on the bus or the cafeteria food. In three-quarters of the
interviews, "the aspect of the field trip that was recalled
subsequently was the content and/or subject matter presented
during the field trip." For almost everyone, stepping into
a museum for the first time (and even the second, third, and
fourth times) was a magical experience.
This issue of Musings focuses on field trips — to
a museum, into your backyard, or into your community —
experiences that can be as valuable as they are memorable.
As Falk and Dierking write, "These memories represented
evidence of learning across a wide array of diverse
topics."(:2)
Field trips introduce students to the idea that learning
doesn't always have to take place in the classroom.
Visitors find out that museums are institutions in which
artifacts and exhibits confront the present with the past
— and that they are fun places in which to learn. As Frank
Oppenheimer, founder of the San Francisco
Exploratorium, says, "Nobody ever failed a museum."
This is what defines informal learning. It's what gives
content-rich institutions like the American Museum of Natural
History an important role in supporting and enriching
science education for everyone.
In this issue of Musings:
In the Classroom:
Secrets of a Successful Field Trip:
Two Museum Educators Tell All
As the AMNH coordinator of New York City's Museum
School, Amy O'Donnell develops project-based learning
modules that extend classroom ideas into museums
and museum ideas into the classroom. Stephanie Fins
works with teachers at New York's Dalton School
to plan museum visits that are embedded within the
curriculum. Between them, they've designed and led
countless field trips to all different kinds of museums.
In this article, they share well-tested tips for a
successful trip, from practicing field trip activities
ahead of time to giving small children a little extra
time to ogle that favorite object.
In the Museum:
A Field Trip
"Into the Field"
Visiting a natural history museum? Why not turn your
field trip into an expedition like the ones that collected
the objects on display in the first place? You can
have your students act like scientists by posing a
question — such as "Why did the mammoths go extinct?" —
and explaining that you're on your way to a place that might
contain the evidence. Kids become active learners as they
make observations, record data, solve puzzles, and come
up with more questions for discussion back in the classroom.
In the Community:
Bringing It Back
to the Bronx
In the hands of Roberta Altman, learning coordinator
of the TASC Afterschool Partnership with the American
Museum of Natural History, a field trip isn't just
a one-way learning experience. It's a cycle of connections
between the community and the Museum. Children from CES42
in the Bronx visit the Museum to investigate a given subject
(the rock cycle, say, or bird migrations). Then they take
their new knowledge out into the neighborhood to collect
evidence and specimens, that will form the basis of a
classroom exhibit. "And then they bring what they know
back to the Museum. It's a cycle of going back and forth,"
explains Altman. "You can always go on an expedition,
and you can exhibit what you've learned anywhere."
Footnotes:
:1 "School Field Trips: Assessing Their Long-Term Impact"
by John H. Falk and Lynn D. Dierking.
Curator: The Museum Journal, Vol. 40, No. 3; September 1997.
:2 Ibid.
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