Real-World Experience Field Trips: Tour Museums, Workplaces and Universities

Discover STEM field trips for students that provide real-world experiences for groups offering great insight and hands-on learning

There are endless ways to learn about STEM within the classroom. However, engaging students in real-world experience field trips to museums, operational work sites and universities will give them a well-rounded understanding of STEM subjects. Students witness how to apply what they’re learning to real-life situations through interactive activities and exciting environments showcasing dynamic STEM careers. Additionally, they gain perspective on why older students and professionals pursue STEM jobs.

Trips like these also have great potential to help students learn more about themselves. Exposure to these real-life STEM applications may lead students to discover a job or field of study that compels them into college and beyond.

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Real-World Experience Field Trips at Museums

From timely exhibits to interactive activities, museums offering STEM combine different learning modes to provide wonderful field trips for students to directly engage with science and technology.

MIT Museum – Cambridge, MA

The MIT Museum welcomes student groups from grades 5-12 and offers several exhibitions and workshops. Guided tours focus on one of three exhibition galleries: Students can ponder the potential and risks of AI, explore how art and science can create a unique insight into gene editing, and look at MIT’s scientific efforts in the collections gallery. Any option will give your students a guided view of how STEM is imaginatively applied at collegiate and professional levels.

For more hands-on experiences, the museum’s workshops are tailored for student groups and encourage them to tackle science and engineering challenges. Younger classes can experiment with mechanical motion by making kinetic sculptures or using circuitry to build pet robots. These activities blend engineering and creativity and allow kids to have fun with seemingly daunting tasks.

High school programs look deeper into their chosen subject matter. One workshop influenced by studies at MIT has students slow phenomena down through high-speed photography and video to find patterns and mathematical relationships used to address real-world problems. Another workshop inspired by NASA telescopes incorporates math and science to decode signals that unveil information about exoplanets. This chance to simulate realistic scenarios allows students to directly experience and determine their thoughts about the hands-on work involved in STEM careers.

Museum of Science, Boston – Boston, MA

The Museum of Science, Boston, is a real-world experience field trip destination that seeks to encourage students’ curiosity and motivate them to think like scientists and engineers. Daily live presentations from museum educators will entertain and amaze visiting classes, teaching them about subjects like quantum physics and electrical energy. For more involved learning, have your students participate in drop-in activities, where they can create using the engineering design process, investigate human biology through various projects, and more.

Older students considering careers in STEM can explore the museum’s High School Science Series. At different events, participants will meet local professionals, hear a keynote address, and learn more about potential job opportunities they can pursue.

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Workplace STEM Field Trips for Students

From gaining a better understanding of what employees do to considering how the work translates to the real world, your student’s perception of STEM workplace roles will undoubtedly expand after witnessing the impressive scopes they could work within.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center – Greenbelt, MD

Just below the Northeast proper, the Goddard Space Flight Center is NASA’s premier space flight complex. It contains the nation’s largest organization of engineers, scientists and technologists who work to investigate our solar system and universe. For K-8 student groups, the visitor center’s programs showcase the rousing work being done at Goddard.

Ongoing options focus on how scientists, engineers and astronauts have helped humans survive in space and the layered engineering design process behind building a satellite. This real-world experience field trip offers students an up-close view of the center during operating hours, providing a thrilling preview of the heights pursuing a career in STEM can allow one to reach. Older students can get a thrilling preview of STEM at work during two-hour tours, including satellite construction, testing and operations areas.

General Electric (GE) Aerospace Lynn Facility – Lynn, MA

Home to America’s first jet engine, GE Aerospace’s Lynn facility designs, produces, assembles, and tests commercial and military aircraft engines and components. The facility’s team of over 2,500 employees continually looks to improve the quality of its products and processes to support GE customers, making innovation a constant today.

Such a large-scale operation is not only a fantastic way for students to see STEM in action but also an opportunity for them to consider how working in STEM can contribute to staples of our society, like commercial aircraft that transport thousands of goods daily. The Lynn plant does not offer exclusive student programming, but your class can easily schedule an onsite visit to tour this ever-evolving and inspiring workspace.

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Real-World Experience Field Trips at Universities

Universities that emphasize STEM studies are invaluable resources for impressionable students. Their efforts to spread knowledge often allow visitors to work within advanced facilities and receive firsthand accounts from enrolled students and professionals.

Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) – Rochester, NY

RIT is one of the nation’s top universities and offers over one hundred STEM-designated programs. The K-12 University Center customizes STEM field trips that revolve around whatever you want your class to experience. Typical activities include tours focused on particular areas of campus and college panels run by university students, giving visitors the chance to ask questions about college and STEM at a collegiate level.

For more interactive options, students can participate in the Toyota Production Systems Lab or work in the school’s 3D printing lab, guided by faculty members. The sheer amount of access alone will surely excite students. Still, direct interactions with RIT students and professionals working within the realm of STEM can give groups more personal perspectives and, consequently, more informed understandings of why people choose to work in these fields.

Northeastern University – Boston, MA

Northeastern University is home to a wide selection of STEM-focused field trip experiences. Grades 4-8 can participate in activities in engineering, paper rockets and solar energy. Additionally, Northeastern students regularly assist with the university’s field trip series. These tasks are great for immersing younger students in STEM through accessible means and intelligent resources.

High school group instructors can request a campus tour for grades 9-12 or look into Northeastern’s “Building Bridges” days for more interactive opportunities. These sessions aim to teach high school students about engineering with hands-on activities led by members of the school’s engineering departments. Northeastern’s passion for STEM curriculum gives young students enthusiastic exposure to these topics and helps students better discern what a STEM future looks like.

STEM Field Trips Motivate Students for Life

Visiting locations professionally based around STEM subjects is a real-world experience field trip that can provide students with entirely new perspectives on these disciplines. Whether your group field trip involves participating in activities at a science museum, observing the inner workings of a functional STEM workplace, or getting a better look at what futures in STEM can look like with university offerings, these intimate engagements can help students gain new understandings of the impactful and rewarding accomplishments of STEM careers.

For more field trip ideas and opportunities, keep reading from our 2025 Northeast Field Trip Guide.

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By Ben Spielman – Contributing Writer