Purposeful field trips can be a good way of helping at-risk rural high school students connect the classroom to the real world, according to a new study.
Published in the fall issue of The Rural Educator, the peer-reviewed publication of the National Rural Education Association, the study was conducted in Texas, where some high school science courses require students to be able to link the content they’re learning with future jobs or training.
From a pool of 37 high school seniors in a small, rural Texas high school, the researchers focused on four low-performing students who could not make the kind of classroom-to-real-world connections required by the state.
After a career-focused field trip to a nearby vocational training center, however, all four could articulate a content-career connection.
