ST. PETERSBURG — Dozens of Midtown Academy fourth graders and their chaperones poured out of two school buses outside the James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art, chattering as they lined up in pre-assigned groups.
They hushed as they entered the cavernous sculpture arroyo that welcomes visitors, pausing for selfies before an indoor waterfall. They sat through a brief welcome in the museum auditorium, then headed out to experience the art.
For most of the kids, it was their third or fourth field trip of the year. And they couldn’t have been happier.
“I like going on field trips,” said Brinley Brown, 10, as she watched her classmates try on some of the western wear that docent Chuck Duritsch displayed. “It’s fun. You get to learn a lot of new things. You get to go out of school. … You can’t always picture it without a field trip.”
That’s the reaction Pinellas County school Superintendent Kevin Hendrick hoped for when he set a goal of getting students more engaged through hands-on activities. During the pandemic, many children lost interest as classes moved online and then, upon their return, everyone had to keep their distance because of ongoing health concerns.
Many extra events that held students’ attention were curtailed. Attendance fell as families took advantage of Florida’s growing number of other education options.
Hendrick made it clear that the district needed to do more to bring students back. To him, that meant giving them a reason to be there beyond sitting in a classroom listening to lessons. He promoted clubs, sports and academic competitions. He even created a new position in his leadership team to oversee the initiative, the director of student experience.
“So many people talk about attendance, and that there’s an attendance crisis,” Hendrick said. “You don’t get out of that by creating policy and talking about it.”
The answer lies in giving children something to look forward to, he contended. And field trips are an important feature of that effort.
This school year, the district has received field trip requests for 15,000 more students than a year ago, student experience director Kim Hill said. Funding comes from a variety of sources, including the district’s property tax referendum and federal pandemic relief money.
Hill said her office is working on a system to track the data, while continuing to provide opportunities for all students. It’s a district priority, she added.
“There is power in going off campus,” she said.
And there’s research to back that up.
Heidi Erickson, an assistant professor of education leadership at Brigham Young University, studied randomly selected groups of students from an Atlanta school district to gauge the effects of going on field trips. One group took three trips to cultural institutions, while another stayed in school.
Over time, Erickson said, the students who went on the field trips performed better academically, with fewer disciplinary issues and more tolerance for others. The results were statistically strong enough to suggest a cause-effect relationship, she said, though she added that the reason was less clear.
One theory is that students associated school with positive activities that encouraged them to work harder, she said.
“Overall, field trips are a relatively low-cost and easy intervention or activity to advance students’ educational experience,” Erickson said. “I think schools should embrace it more.”
Midtown Academy art teacher Sarah O’Donoghue said bringing students to a museum excites them about art in a way that showing them reproductions and reprints in class can’t. It also provides ideas for when they get back to school, such as creating their own pieces based on what they saw.
It might be tough keeping all the kids together or getting a bus for the trip — lead time of at least a month is needed. “But it’s OK, because they love it,” O’Donoghue said.
She didn’t mind, for instance, when Daekota Brown, 9, wandered away from the group to take in the art on her own terms.
“I don’t always like staying with the crowd,” Daekota explained, as she effused over the brush strokes and shadowing on paintings. “I like quiet spaces.”
It also was just fine that Jayce Nettles, 10, toured the exhibits with smartphone in hand, recording all he could until the battery ran out. From his teacher’s perspective, Jayce was appreciating the museum for the future.
“It’s beautiful and looks great,” Jayce said, adding that the video was “so I can capture the moment and share it with my family.”
Expanding children’s worldview is a key field trip selling point for Thomas Myers, a math teacher at Thurgood Marshall Fundamental Middle School. He escorted 25 sixth, seventh and eighth graders to USF’s St. Petersburg campus and the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg as part of a science and engineering field trip in March, just before spring break.
Students from Bay Point and John Hopkins middle schools also attended the trip, which was supported by the city of St. Petersburg.
“It’s extremely important as they’re growing up and figuring out what they want to do and where they fit into the world,” Myers said as he watched students compete in a computer-assisted design competition to create logos for the race.
His colleague, science teacher Amy Greth, said the students clearly enjoyed seeing how some of the lessons they get in school have practical applications.
“I prefer this classroom every day,” Greth said as she watched the students experiment with 3D printers, electronic circuits and virtual reality goggles in the USF library maker station.
She praised the school district for making a concerted effort to send students on more field trips. “Everywhere I take them, they are excited about it.”
Angela Truong, who has three children in the district, chaperoned the trip with her eighth-grade son Alex Nguyen. She, too, said schools should provide as many field trips as possible because they keep children interested in what they’re learning.
“The kids look forward to it, and it’s something they remember,” Truong said. “My youngest is still talking about his trip to the fire station from kindergarten.”
Her son Alex agreed.
“Instead of being stuck in the classroom, you can go explore,” he said, while waiting to head to the race paddock to meet with pit crews and drivers. “I like seeing how things are built and how they function. It’s better to see in person than in a picture.”
For sixth grader Jordynn Shelby, field trips provide a needed diversion to keep her attention. “I get really bored sitting in a class every day,” she said while eating lunch at one of USF’s cafeterias, which she said was much better than school lunch. “This is a funner way to learn.”
Her classmate, Marley Larkin, said she had never been to a car race before. She welcomed more new experiences, suggesting one every grading period would be about right. Without knowing it, she echoed the superintendent.
“It’s something to look forward to,” Marley said. “Everyone likes field trips.”
