The near-term social-emotional and academic benefits of arts-based field trips has been well documented, but a new study shows that multiple arts-based field trips can have positive effects that endure for multiple years. Laura Florick, Jay P. Greene, Rebecca Levenberg, and Rebecca Pogue describe a partnership between a school district and arts…

In a two-year study, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University education staff found that students who participated in a museum-school collaboration became more proficient in several Common Core State Standard skills than a control group. The program, Words & Pictures, directly ties to the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards and is…

The People Learning Urban Science (PLUS) program creates partnerships and coordinates efforts involving a local zoo, university, and school district, seeking to instill within students a sense of the natural environment. Even though the majority of students live among concrete and metal structures, their eyes and ears can be trained to make…

When teachers, parents, and community members work together, children benefit (Henderson and Mapp 2002). This is especially true when the collaboration is coordinated and focused as it was for the Greenteam, a science ecology club and an event created by a network of educators, elementary students, and science professionals. The club and a…

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…

Assessments of U.S. students typically reveal stronger performance in science than mathematics yet their science performance remains uninspiring at best. Whether the metric considered is an international benchmark from TIMSS or PISA or the nation's NAEP report card, the mediocre portrait of U.S. science achievement has remained virtually unchanged…

This paper describes the Science in the City seminar, an innovative approach to in-service and preservice science teacher development that bridges formal and informal science learning contexts. Drawing upon the tenets of design and evaluation research, the study focuses on the teachers' presentations of evidence of student learning from trips they…

The basic objective of this project was to take all the basic data relevant to individual community resources and put it into a meaningful form, and to provide it to the individual teacher upon request. Over 400 firms and individuals are listed and active in the file. There are 24 major classifications each with 100 possible minor classifications.…

Describes field trips and related activities in which nearby institutions, local celebrities, and distinctive aspects of community life are employed to enrich the Schools Reaching Out project at the David A. Ellis School in Roxbury (MA). (DM)

Suggests field trips and other community exploration activities to show students that reading exists as a useful skill outside the classroom. (SJL)

This resource guide is a teacher's handbook to locating persons in the community who are willing, upon request, to talk with students in grades one through twelve on subjects being taught in the schools. The guide also informs the teacher as to what tours or field trips are available and lists alphabetically 279 different topics for which…

To encourage secondary social studies teachers to utilize community resources, the author describes three successful programs involving school community involvement. He also discusses the basic teaching method of field trips, interviews, and guest speakers, used in many school community programs. (Author/RM)

Children from the 145-student Ets Chiyim School in Montgomery Village, Md., were not visiting Washington's National Zoo, a 35-minute drive away. Rather, they walked through the fluorescent-lit, merchandise-laden aisles of a local Petco, a San Diego, Calif.-based pet-store chain with 690 locations nationwide. Ets Chiyim is one of a growing number…

Activities to develop career and personal awareness are an important aspect of curriculum development as shown by one class of fourth graders. The students became aware of career opportunities and learned observation and interviewing skills through field experience by a visit to a recycling plant. (CC)