Students regularly take field trips that correspond to specific classroom projects or topics of study. At CDS, we view field trips as research tools. Depending on the destination and goals for a particular field trip, students may gather facts and information, obtain information through their own observations or find out more by interviewing experts in their fields of study.
For example:
- Following an intensive study of bread, preschoolers visited a local bakery to meet a baker and observe the baking process from start to finish.
- Third graders researching plants visited the Strybing Arboretum and Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park to take photographs, draw pictures and interview a botanist.
- Fourth graders studying the decline in wetland habitat visited the Hayward Regional Shoreline to see a wetlands habitat and count the different kinds of birds living there, as well as ask thoughtful questions of the on-site ranger.
Parents are often volunteer drivers and chaperones for these trips.