Types of trips

There’s different ways of interacting with scientific research institutes, universities and science centres, each with their own benefits and limitations. They can be used differently for different year groups, topics and abilities to enhance your teaching.

“I tried to keep up to date with what is available by regularly trawling through the kind of widening participation areas of universities to see what they can offer us or looking at kind of research organisations to see what they’ve got in terms of public engagement.” – Alison Ackryod

Virtual trips and talks might range from an online talk from a researcher, to a ‘cook-along’ style activity, or a full virtual lab tour.

School visitors might include science communicators and/or scientists visiting your school to deliver a workshop, activities or assembly with students.

Visiting a scientific research centre may include touring labs in person, meeting scientists and doing interactive activities with students. However, not every research centre or institute will have the capacity or ability to host school trips. Instead, many areas have science centre or museums, which are better set up for larger visits.

Visiting a science centre or museum may include touring their exhibitions and attending a science show or workshop. Science centres are often well placed for younger students to engage with lots of different topics in science.

Each type of trip has its own way of enhancing your teaching, as well as its own pros and cons.

For each trip type, how do you think they can best support and enhance your teaching, and what are their pros and cons?

For our ideas please see Pdf download below.