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Making field trips to museums memorable this school year

Whether you’re focusing on the learning experience, logistics or links to curricula, the Smithsonian has ideas to support field trip planning that make the process a little less daunting, no matter when and where you plan to visit this school year.

9 min read

By Ashley Naranjo 09/16/24

Education

Astronomy educator Shauna Edson leads students through the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. The Space Shuttle Discovery behind them is currently on display at the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. In 2012, NASA transferred Discovery to the Smithsonian after a delivery flight over the nation's capital.

Astronomy educator Shauna Edson leads students through the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. The Space Shuttle Discovery behind them is currently on display at the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. In 2012, NASA transferred Discovery to the Smithsonian after a delivery flight over the nation's capital. (National Air and Space Museum)

As the school year begins, educators across the Smithsonian tend to get super excited as the first yellow school bus pulls up to our museums. Field trips offer the potential to connect content from the classroom and apply it in context; they can inspire future career pathways, hone fundamental skills and offer new perspectives on a topic.

Last spring, Phoebe Sherman, an educator at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum, offered the Education Department the following tips for teachers when planning a museum field trip:

  1. Explore the museum website. Check all of the program offerings, explore the topics covered and pay attention to the targeted age groups. 
  2. Reach out to the museum. Share your questions and work with the staff to build a customized program that will best serve your students’ needs
  3. Introduce the museum to your students. Explore materials online together to generate excitement and build context of what they might see and experience when they arrive. 
  4. Share your expectations. Communicate your goals and expectations with students and chaperones.
  5. Unleash student curiosity. Allow your students some space to explore on their own.
  6. Debrief the trip. Once back in the classroom, discuss the students’ experiences to solidify learnings. 
  7. Keep referencing the trip. Find ways to link new content taught in the classroom back to learnings from the trip.

Sherman is a former classroom teacher and now shares her expertise widely with visiting classrooms from across the country. Having had the chance to join Sherman as she led a group of local kindergartners through the Postal Museum, I noticed the care and thoughtfulness that went into the structure of the program to ensure it was developmentally appropriate, relevant and captured their attention.

On the day of the field trip, we connected at a designated meeting point in the museum lobby and Sherman introduced some key expectations for the young learners. She did so with laminated visuals, seeking input from the students about their own ideas. She previewed the objects they would visit in the exhibition spaces, allowing their anticipation to build. The program was split into multiple connected activities to maintain high engagement, from reading a storybook (Dear Juno, by Soyung Pak) that previewed themes of the visit to moving through the exhibit spaces and taking in collection objects related to the group’s previous discussions. The students even practiced their own skills in mailing a letter at the museum’s in-house post office. It was all a master class in knowing your audience and the ways they would best connect with the targeted content and skills.The teachers and chaperones, too, received clear pre- and post- instruction and an introduction that likely alleviated any uncertainties about expectations.

As Sherman puts it, “The most powerful field trips find their roots of success back in the classroom with the teacher.” It was important to her that the time and resources the visiting teacher invested in making the field trip a reality translated into a meaningful learning experience for the students.

On their field trip at the National Postal Museum, students learn about how the mail keeps us all connected. Here, they are learning how to mail a letter, which they wrote to a friend about their field trip, at the US Post Office on site at the museum. (National Postal Museum)
On their field trip at the National Postal Museum, students learn about how the mail keeps us all connected. Here, they are learning how to mail a letter, which they wrote to a friend about their field trip, at the US Post Office on site at the museum. (National Postal Museum)

Sherman is one of hundreds of educators across the Smithsonian who welcome learners to our museums, libraries and the National Zoo each year. In addition to the National Postal Museum, which offers students from grades Pre-K to 12 opportunities to make connections to problem-solving, communications and civic engagement, the Smithsonian has a wide range of experiences to tap in to with your students.

For example:

  • The National Museum of Asian Art provides quality field trip programs that deepen students’ understanding of Asian arts and cultures, develop students’ capacity for slow looking, and broaden students’ perspective-taking capacities. Topics for both online and in-person field trips include animals and nature, symbolism in art, celebrations and festivals, and ancient civilizations. For the second year in a row, their museum educators have won the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration’s Pinnacle Award for their accomplishments in creating live, virtual field trips that have high educational value, actively involve learners at their level and are professionally delivered.
  • The National Museum of Natural History offers field trips for schools, plus homeschool-specific offerings. Students in grades K-2 can visit the museum and focus on animal adaptations, or classifying shells; while students in grades 3-5 can identify minerals or explore insect survival—among a wide menu of options. Secondary students take on hands-on investigations that put the learners in the role of the museum’s scientists, such as studying real 66-million-year-old microfossils and reconstructing past ecosystems, or observing and analyzing images of plates with the organisms that live in the ocean to better understand human impact on coral reefs. Sign-ups for online programming are also available, with limited free spots opening approximately two months in advance.
  • The National Air and Space Museum has two locations offering field trips for student groups—including one of the most visited museums in the world at the iconic National Mall building, plus a museum filled with thousands of space and aviation artifacts in two large hangars at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. In addition to guided tours, students can experience the museum through engaging offerings such as science demonstrations and story times. Online programs offered by the museum include virtual planetarium shows and the museum’s Emmy-nominated program for middle school students, STEM in 30. New monthly episodes are released, featuring hands-on activities, explanations of aviation and space topics aligned with national standards, and interviews with experts.
During an “Identifying Minerals” field trip at the National Museum of Natural History, students learn how to identify a variety of minerals by testing their luster, streak, hardness, color and magnetism with a museum educator and volunteers supporting facilitation. The program pairs well with a visit to the museum’s Geology, Gems and Minerals Hall afterwards, putting what the students learned into context. (Ashley Naranjo)
During an “Identifying Minerals” field trip at the National Museum of Natural History, students learn how to identify a variety of minerals by testing their luster, streak, hardness, color and magnetism with a museum educator and volunteers supporting facilitation. The program pairs well with a visit to the museum’s Geology, Gems and Minerals Hall afterwards, putting what the students learned into context. (Ashley Naranjo)

While some Smithsonian museums don’t specifically offer facilitated field trips or student visits at the moment, museums like the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden offer suggestions and tips for pre-visit lessons, as well as exhibition guides that encourage students to think critically, look closely and draw creatively through conversation, activities and reflection. 

If you live outside of the Washington, D.C. area, you may already know that the Smithsonian is not solely based in our nation’s capital, but in fact, has research centers and museums in other cities too. 

The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md., offers unique on-site school programs that focus on Chesapeake Bay biodiversity and the science of the Smithsonian. Students take on the role of scientists, using similar sampling techniques and methods to learn about life in the Bay and their connection to that life.

In addition to the museum on the National Mall, the National Museum of the American Indian has a second location based in New York City. Students ages 10 and up can enjoy the interactive imagiNATIONS Activity Center, a lively space to explore scientific principles behind Native innovations and technologies that are so ingenious many remain a part of our daily lives. One of the key takeaways of the space is that Indigenous people are the original innovators of the Americas.

The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is also based in New York City. Cooper Hewitt welcomes K-12 classes to experience design at the museum. Their field trips explore how design shapes and reflects our everyday lives. In the 2024-25 school year, students will be led by a Cooper Hewitt educator on a visit to the exhibition, “Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial,” followed by a hands-on activity that immerses them in the design making process. Design Field Trips are tailored to meet the needs of students in every stage of their learning journey. Each track has been developed to meet national and New York State Standards and is aligned with the Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education framework. 

The Smithsonian also has a network of over 200 museums and organizations nationwide as part of the Smithsonian Affiliations program. What field trip offerings are hosted by your local museum spaces? Museums such as the Durham Museum in Omaha, Neb., produce Museum Live! and other engaging virtual field trip offerings. Each week, during the school year, Museum Live! brings 30 minutes of an interactive, broadcast-style show to classrooms nationwide. The program includes segments featuring guest speakers from the Smithsonian network, a behind-the-scenes look at museum exhibits and artifacts, cultural connections to the community, and current events. 

Orlando Serrano, a National Museum of American History museum educator, leads a group of Boys & Girls Clubs of America teens through an exploration of the museum’s stories that center around themes of democracy and civic engagement. (Norwood Photography)
Orlando Serrano, a National Museum of American History museum educator, leads a group of Boys & Girls Clubs of America teens through an exploration of the museum’s stories that center around themes of democracy and civic engagement. (Norwood Photography)

Of course, museum field trips are not solely limited to teachers and students. Out-of-school time groups can also find inspiration in museum spaces. Boys & Girls Clubs of America teens from across the country visit the Smithsonian during their Summit for America’s Youth, an annual youth advocacy event held in Washington, D.C., to make connections between historical case studies of changemakers and their own role in becoming civically engaged around the issues they care about most. 

No matter how you decide to engage your students in museum learning this school year, we recommend referring back to Sherman’s tips as you plan the experience. While postal history or design might not be topics that first come to mind, museum educators take on the integral role of bridging content from our collections and exhibitions to align to subject areas and skills that will engage students and offer unique hooks into a topic. Remember too, effective field trips can come in many forms–from facilitated to self-guided, from onsite to online, from hands-on to discussion-based. 

A full listing of Smithsonian spaces and field trip opportunities is available at the Smithsonian website. 

Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.

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