I still love hash browns. To this day!
In middle school, as part of a long unit on NASA, we took a 3-day trip to Huntsville. I was disappointed we didn’t get to try that 3-axis spinning thingy. I think the trip occurred shortly before the Challenger explosion.
In high school, we visited the University of Chicago during part of a trip to Chicago. I was sold on the U of C during that visit and ended up attending, so that may have been the field trip with the greatest impact on my life.
Grew up in Philly suburbs. Public school. Mid-60s to 1980.
Best? A couple. Touching The Liberty Bell. Watching coins get made at the Franklin Mint. Walking through the enormous human heart at The Franklin Institute.
The single best? Standing in Independence Hall, where the founding documents were writ and signed.
Amazing.
In grade 8, I went on a field trip to the University of Toronto. It was basically a tour of the older part of the campus. In middle school, I was not sure if I wanted to go to university (as my parents pretty much expected I would) or if I wanted to learn a trade (e.g. be a car mechanic). I was very impessed by the experience: seeing the stately campus, visiting the Sigmund Samuel science library (it should come as no surprise that, as someone who is on SD, I have always been curious about learning about the world around me) and having lunch/an Earl Grey tea at the cafe in the elegant Hart House. I think this experience pretty much cemented it in my mind that I would be going to university - and indeed I ended up going to the U of T.
I toured Washington courtesy of Close Up when I was a senior in high school. It was 1977, so Jimmy Carter had just been inaugurated. All the kids I met were from different school systems in the Cleveland area, where I grew up, but our counselor compared us unfavorably to the previous week’s scholars from New Orleans, who were so full of the laissez les bon temps rouler spirit that the vehicle charged with transporting them around D.C. was christened “The Boogie Bus”.
Heh, 
Happy Cake Day, @Sternvogel!! Many happy returns of the day!
Can’t do this anymore. Some idiot with a hammer ruined it for everyone back in 2001.
Yeah. People suck.
Philly is also known for the Please Touch Museum which, as one might presume, exists solely to let children touch art and engage with it.
That bell’s made of hardy stuff. A billion reverent touches wouldn’t ever make a dent.
School field trips are an actual thing? Not just made up for movies and teen sitcoms?
None of my schools- elementary through high school- ever did any sort of field trip.
I think the last day of school in Third Grade. Teacher walked us a half mile up the street for ice cream cones at the diner.
I went to a middle school which treated all of the 8th Graders to a fun trip toward the end of the year. My class got a trip to what is now Six Flags New England but I got sick that day and had to stay home.
The best one I went on while at school was a geology field trip, which included some hiking, lots of looking at rocks, and a fossil dig. Certainly sold me on it. But that was a special trip with kids from multiple schools, organized by the University geology students, and only 3 from my school went out of some 25 kids.
The best one organized by the school itself was to the local castle. It included the traditional “turn off the lights in the dungeon” experience, always fun for a class of 13-year olds.
Speaking as a teacher, the field trips I most enjoyed were when we, as a department, would take the entire senior class to court. An entire morning of teenagers sitting in courtrooms, watching the proceedings. The judges loved it, the bailiffs loved it, the kids had a very entertaining and educational experience and the teachers wandered wherever we wanted. Lots of fun and was remembered fondly by those who got to go. Haven’t been able to afford those trips in 15 years, of course.
It wasn’t a field trip per se, but we did have a school trip to Japan. I guess there were about 40 students in total who went, and it was an amazing time.
We did all the standard southern california trips in elementary school - Los Angeles Zoo, Natural History Museum and the adjacent California Science Center (I think it was called the Museum of Science and Industry back then), La Brea Tar Pits (pre-Page Museum, so just some stinky holes in the ground), Mission San Juan Capistrano in 4th grade when we covered California history.
The now-closed Busch Gardens had a bird show that somehow made the place educational, and all us MGM students got to have a day off and go there, watch the bird show, then go on rides (no brewery tour, though)
My 8th grade teacher set up the most memorable trips - Olvera Street and the touring production of Annie at the Schubert in Century City. We also toured TRW (local aerospace company) after they caved about refusing to allow the kid from Colombia to take the tour. Teacher said, “fine, none of us will go” and the company relented. Most exciting thing for us nerds wasn’t the satellites under construction, it was seeing the building where the exteriors for the Star Trek episode “Operation: Annihilate” were filmed.
In reading this most enjoyable thread, I suddenly remembered that at the end of a school year in Jr High, the entire 9th grade ( which used to be the last year of Jr. High ) went on a field trip to what was that called Great Adventure Amusement Park. ( Now a Six Flags location ).
It was incredible. Before schools let out. Like… a Tuesday morning. We were there when they opened. NO lines. Tons of great rides, tons of fun. Zero educational content.
Amazing.
So lots of experiential learning about Newtonian physics then? Acceleration, deceleration, energy, mass, gravity….
When I was in sixth grade in Toronto, we went on a field trip to Ottawa. It was an overnight trip, and we took the train there, stayed in basic accommodations, and flew back. It was a little expensive for our parents, but they all figured that the educational aspect was worth it: we visited the Canadian War Museum (we got to climb all over a decommissioned Sherman tank), the Royal Canadian Mint (damn, no free samples), toured Parliament, and we sat in the public gallery while Parliament was in session. (“Wow–is that really the Prime Minister speaking?”). Still, many felt the best part was the train ride and the airline flight. Most of us had never flown or ridden a train.
Also in sixth grade, we spent a week camping. Our school principal had a hobby farm north of the city, and we camped there, in tents. It was a week of nature/farming study, and we took daily weather readings, recorded the birds we had seen, and noted the wildlife we found on our hikes–I distinctly remember that we encountered a beaver and a snapping turtle, down by the pond. We visited a local dairy farm, and a John Deere dealership with all kinds of cool farming equipment. Knowledgeable parents came up to give guest talks–one classmate’s father was a meteorologist, and he came to speak about weather; and another’s father was an ornithologist, who came to guide us on a bird-watching walk. A couple of musically-inclined parents with guitars came one night, so we could have a singalong by the fire pit.
The best part, as far as I was concerned, was that the the hobby farm had riding horses. Over the week, I learned how to groom a horse, tack her out, and ride. Not a fairground pony ride, a real horseback ride on a real horse; first in the paddock, then if you could prove that you were up to the task, on a trail. I turned out to be up to the task. I’ve never forgotten those lessons, and have groomed and tacked horses–and enjoyed horseback riding–ever since.
Not to mention vertigo, projectile vomiting… 
My story is a little sideways to the OP question - Every year in High School the Seniors did a local Government Day, where we toured the town and visited government offices/facilities and learned about their functions. As I was a highly accomplished student, and involved in absolutely everything (think Jason Schwartman’s character in “Rushmore”), I was selected to be in charge of arranging the day. So, I was responsible for the team that contacted each of the offices and let them know when/where/etc. it was happening, so they could do their thing. I suspect that the teachers in charge were also doing the same thing, and that we students were mostly play-acting, ultimately.
Anywho, one aspect that was new for the year I was in charge was a visit to the Federal Prison in town. This was back when the documentary “Scared Straight” was making the rounds (troubled kids meet prisoners, who terrorize them to keep them from a life of crime). Our interaction wasn’t meant to be like that, exactly, but instead a tour of the prison and a meet & greet with some prisoners. As my father was in the management at the prison, I took on the task of meeting with them and arranging the event.
Like any school project involving groups of students, one of our team totally bugged out on his task. So, I two days before the scheduled event I ran over to the fire department to plead with them to be ready for us on the day. (This is where I became convinced that the teachers had pre-seeded this whole thing.) The fire captain was all, “Well, hmm, sure, I think we can get Joe and Bill to spend the day showing the kids around…(wink).”
So, the Government Day happened without any noticeable hitches.
To me, the most memorable moment was visiting the waste treatment plant and viewing the sewage ponds. The Waste Treatment Manager was not someone who was skilled at talking to groups in public, and the whole time there was a visible condom floating on top of the shit.
I was graded on the project and got a B. Probably because I really wasn’t organized, and didn’t follow up with my team properly.
Probably the best one was the primary school trip when I was about 10, living in Northern England. A trip to London, to go see Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Starlight Express. 2 musicals, 0 educational value and 1 night in some cheap hotel. I was the oldest kid in the group, due to a complicated set of circumstances, and was a good head taller than anyone else, so I got minimal supervision.
I’m pretty certain it was just because the head wanted to go to the shows- any sensible attempt at an educational trip to London would have included at least one free museum. It was fun though.