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Formal Learning In An Informal Setting: The Cognitive And Affective Impacts Of Visiting A Science Center During A School Field Trip, Charlie Belin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the pressures of budget cuts, many schools--particularly schools serving low-income students--are eliminating school field trips to museums, zoos, and other cultural institutions despite their widely reported utility. First, through a systematic review of the literature, I examine the findings from 17 international studies on the benefits of visiting an informal science education institution during a K-12 school field trip. Almost all pre-post studies reported a positive change in both cognitive and affective outcomes after visiting an ISEI. However, studies that also included a control group to compare students who visited the ISEI with students who had yet to visit …