Beyond the Classroom: How Short Field Trips Help Build Student Connections

By: Matt Cook

Imagine it’s the first day of a new semester. As you walk down the hall from your office to your classroom, you start to think about how this course is going to go: the syllabus, the first-day introductions, the new faces that will soon fill familiar seats. But as you near the classroom door, you start to notice something: it’s not silent in there. The students are already talking to each other. Laughing. Comparing notes about weekend plans or a shared experience. They look, well, like they know each other already.

My friends—this is not a pipe dream that can only happen at small, liberal arts schools. This has been my experience several times over the last few years after I started incorporating short, optional Saturday field trips into my courses. What began as a simple effort to make geography more tangible for students in a Geography of Michigan class has become one of the most effective community-building tools in my teaching toolkit.

Why I Started Doing It

Like many of you, I’ve often thought about how to help students feel more connected at Eastern (especially since the Covid-19 pandemic): to the material, to their faculty, to the university, and to each other. Students arrive with busy lives, competing commitments, and different levels of comfort participating in class. In many of my courses, students come from a wide variety of majors and/or class years, so it can be easy for all of us to see the class as a collection of individuals, not a learning community.

A few years ago, I realized that some of the richest opportunities for learning and connection happen outside the four walls of the classroom. Especially in my Geography of Michigan course, I felt we would be remiss if we didn’t take the opportunity to actually get out and explore Michigan geography with our own eyes.

Because my courses didn’t have field components built into the official schedule, I framed these as optional Saturday excursions. Students help choose the dates, and we coordinate carpools through a shared Google Doc. I make sure to emphasize that the point isn’t just to see new places, but to experience the course’s ideas “in the wild.” I’ve sometimes sweetened the deal for students with something like a small grade boost or allowing folks to use in place of an assignment, but the real reward is for our students to get a chance to connect to each other in ways that often don’t happen in the classroom.

What Happens When You Leave Campus Together

The first time I tried this post-pandemic (I had toyed around with field trips before, but these were more like one-off experiments), I had five students join me for a fall field trip to Plymouth Orchards and Obstbaum Orchards as part of my Geography of Michigan course. While on paper, we were doing course-related things like “comparing agritourism and seasonal economies” across local orchard sites, but even more important to me: students piled into cars together, sampled cider and donuts, and spent the afternoon chatting about everything from course readings to family Fall seasonal traditions. It felt, at moments, more like a group of friends than a class. We spent the day exploring, talking about regional food systems and urban redevelopment — but also about favorite music, travel stories, and the best cider mills.

The next week, those same students walked into class already chatting with each other. Something subtle had shifted: discussions were livelier, group work ran smoother, and even the students who hadn’t gone on the trip seemed to pick up on the relaxed, collegial energy in the room.

That pattern has repeated itself semester after semester. When students share a real-world experience—especially one that’s informal and fun—it builds a sense of belonging that no icebreaker ever could.

Local Geography in Motion

On several other occasions - a trip I’ve run enough times to have “pre-programmed” - our destination has been downtown Detroit for a walking tour that begins at Hart Plaza or sometimes Mariners’ Church of Detroit (depending on availability) and winds through the Renaissance Center, Campus Martius, and Grand Circus Park.

Regardless of the course, I find ways to connect it to our themes (urban geography, cultural landscapes, social/public memory, the intersections of history, race, and space in Michigan cities). But again, the most important part comes from seeing and feeling the textures of the city together: the juxtaposition of historic churches and gleaming skyscrapers, the open expanse of the Riverfront, the sound of the People Mover gliding overhead.

We may talk about revitalization, about who gets to tell the story of a place, and about how different Detroit feels when you walk it rather than just read about it. It’s never a formal lecture; it’s a conversation, and one that often continues as we grab Madcap coffee and share photos before heading home.

 The Cranbrook Adventure (and a Lesson in Humility)

Then there was the Heritage Tourism and Preservation trip this past Winter, one Saturday adventure to Cranbrook House and Gardens in Bloomfield Hills. We carpooled up from campus, started at the Cranbrook Institute of Science, and after lunch walked the grounds. Along the way, we discuss the connections between Cranbrook’s history, architecture, and landscape design.

It was a packed day of learning, but also of laughter. (I may or may not have…somewhat badly…turned an ankle while skipping through the parking lot with one of the students. The class did NOT let me live that down the rest of the semester.) That kind of shared humor and humanity does more for class cohesion than any carefully scripted discussion prompt. (And don’t worry; I rehabbed the ankle and still ran a half-marathon on it in May.)

Keeping It Simple (and Sustainable)

One of the best parts about these outings is that they don’t require massive budgets, university vans, or complex planning. I try to keep them local (within an hour’s drive), low-cost, and flexible. Students coordinate carpools, vote on dates, and often suggest destinations. We debrief the next class with a short conversation or reflection, tying the field experience back to course content.

In a sense, the trips model the very thing they aim to cultivate: shared responsibility, collaboration, and genuine engagement. The logistics—especially around carpooling and group decision-making—and the spontaneous side conversations are all part of the pedagogy.

The Bigger Picture

At a university-wide level, these kinds of experiences align beautifully with what the Faculty Development Center’s “Persisting Together” initiative is all about: creating opportunities for students to build authentic, relational connections that support their sense of belonging. Field trips may seem like a small thing—a Saturday afternoon here, a short drive there—but the impact can be surprisingly enduring. Shared experiences, laughter, and a few inside jokes about a professor’s ill-fated skipping attempt can do as much for student engagement as any new technology or pedagogical framework.

Back to the Classroom Door

So picture that first day of class again. You’re standing at the door, hearing the buzz of conversation, the sound of students who already feel at ease with one another.

You step inside, and they quiet down, well…mostly! But the sense of connection lingers. They’ve shared something real, something beyond the classroom. And as I’ve learned, sometimes that’s all it takes to help students—and professors—persist together.