www.bcfieldtrips.ca - An On-line Database of Fieldtrip Opportunities

Lisa McIntosh, Vancouver Maritime Museum, Canada
Jamie Purves, Britannia Heritage Shipyard National Historic Site, Canada
Krista Tulloch, Wolfe Elementary School, Canada
Maggie Kilian, VanDusen Botanical Garden, Canada
http://www.bcfieldtrips.ca

Demonstration: Demonstrations - Session 2

Low budgets make it very difficult for museum educators to effectively and efficiently promote their field trip programs to teachers. Teachers, are pressured to justify their field trip selections based on curriculum connections, timing and cost. Typically, teachers select field trips from incomplete, out of date brochures, announcements and flyers in a variety of formats from the school field trip information binder.

A solution to the problems faced by museum educators and teachers can be found in the creation of an searchable on-line database of field trip opportunities. The BC Fieldtrips website (http://www.bcfieldtrips.ca) is an example of such a site. Created by volunteers from three Vancouver museums and a teacher with the Vancouver School Board, the site contains the most comprehensive listing of field trip opportunities available in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.

The creators of this site will demonstrate the Web site and discuss issues related to its implementation and plans for future development.