Whiteboards replaced chalkboards, computers shoved aside typewriters, and now the time-honored field trip is fighting for survival.
Nationwide, museum officials worry that school-group visits could vanish as fuel costs climb and schools put more emphasis on standardized tests.
They wonder whether student time will be increasingly spent in the classroom — ending the era of parental permission slips, buddy systems and bus-filled choruses of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”
“As people are more and more worried about tests, field trips are going to be a natural thing to go,” said Denver school-board member Michelle Moss.
Some Colorado institutions have already seen a decline, which is particularly sharp before Colorado Student Assessment Program testing in February and March:
• In 2007, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science reported school-group visits were down by 66,000 students — almost a 28 percent drop — from 1998.
• This year, the National Western Stock Show saw a 15 percent drop in field-trip attendees from about 20,000 three years ago.
• The single-day Adams County Farm Day Kids Expo in February had 1,200 visits seven years ago and 100 this year.
• In 2007, the Denver Zoo had about 3,000 fewer students come through on regular field trips than in 2006, when 90,468 attended. Zoo officials say, however, more students are coming to special on-site programs tailored to fit school needs.
Schools across the nation are resorting to tours via the Internet. And museums are doing more outreach, bringing exhibits and experts to classrooms.
“The endgame for the museum field is to do a better job of helping people understand that field trips are not frivolous,” said Ford Bell, president of the American Association of Museums.
Not just “This is cool”
That has been the approach of the Denver Art Museum, which gets an average of 3,000 students a month through on field trips, a number basically unchanged over the years.
In an effort to highlight how a trip to the art museum can be viewed as an academic exercise, the museum has posted on its website available field trips and which of the “Colorado Model Content Standards” those trips address.
For instance, it describes a field trip for kindergartners through second-graders where they imagine themselves in the “world of a painting, holding the pose of a sculpture or comparing two objects from their own point of view.”
The description goes on to list the state standards in visual arts, reading/writing, geography, science and math that the tour helps students understand.
Likewise, other museums — such as the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum — have tailored their programs to the science standards, which are tested in fifth, eighth and 10th grades.
“We aren’t just out there saying, ‘This is cool.’ We are saying, ‘What is the need in the school and how can we develop that?’ ” said Polly Andrews, director of the nature and science museum’s youth and teacher programs.
On a recent spring day, teacher Shannon Durling’s class walked 1 1/2 miles from Harrington Elementary to visit the planetarium because her class is studying space.
Marzita Luevano, 12, pointed out her favorite exhibit, which uses water and red sand to model how scientists believe the channels were carved on Mars.
Nearby, classmate Julio Herrera, 11, played with an exhibit that explains solar flares.
“It’s cool, because we are able to learn new stuff,” he said.
Durling’s class was lucky because the walk to the museum fell on a warm, sunny day.
The class decided to walk because taking a bus would have been too expensive. The school provides each class one bus trip a year. Those cost the district about $105 per trip. An RTD round trip is $1.70 per student.
“It’s still too much money,” Durling said, adding that all of her students qualify for federal lunch benefits — a measure of poverty. Entry to the museum alone is $2.50 per student.
“We really want kids to get out and experience things,” Durling said. “Many of these kids never leave their neighborhood.”
The cost of field trips is only headed upward as long as fuel costs keep rising.
The Denver Zoo in June will begin charging students admission — $3 per kid — to help offset operational costs tied to fuel prices. The science museum said it sees more classes walking or renting cheaper transportation than taking district buses.
Denver Public Schools spent $2.13 a gallon for diesel in November 2006. The district’s last bulk buy was $3.26 a gallon. Officials hope prices drop before next school year. If not, the result could be fewer field trips, said Pauline Gervais, DPS transportation director.
“Fuel is on everyone’s mind,” she said. “It will break your budget. It would have to affect field trips. We will significantly reduce that number.”
That is something administrators and teachers don’t want to see. Maricela Anthony, a reading teacher at Knapp Elementary in Denver, said teachers at her school dip into their own wallets to help kids from poor families pay admission costs.
They know how worthwhile the experience is, she said.
Anthony remembers taking a class to the downtown aquarium, a venue many of her students would not have been able to afford.
“They will never experience these things if you can’t take them on a field trip,” she said. “They had never seen a sea horse before. It inspired them to learn more about it and inspired them to write. It became part of their vocabulary.”
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
