Berkshire Creative announces the launch of the Berkshire County Field Trip Initiative, a new website dedicated to promoting educational and field trip opportunities in the county.
The field trip initiative began in the spring of 2010 when a group of local cultural organization representatives approached Berkshire Creative to host a directory of field trip destinations on berkshirecreative.org. Since then Berkshire Creative has worked with this motivated group to collect information from fourteen leading cultural organizations, and to develop berkshirecreative.org/fieldtrips/.
Berkshirecreative.org/fieldtrips/ is the one-stop shop for planning a Berkshire County field trip. Teachers can search the site by subject (history, science, art, etc.), organization type (museum or theatre), or by organization name. Each listing includes an interactive google map, link to the organization’s website, and vital information about each site. This tool provides quick, easy field trip planning for teachers with the information about who to contact, whether or not the programs meet state curriculum guidelines, and even dining facilities and gift shop information.
Increased awareness and participation in educational programming offered by museums, theatres and arts venues by teachers and, by extension, their students, impacts the health of the cultural community.
“We saw this is a great opportunity to simultaneously serve multiple parts of the community,” says Berkshire Creative Director, Helena Fruscio. “With little to no overhead, we have been able to create a new promotion tool for our cultural organizations, streamline the field trip planning process for educators, and help ensure that the next generation of Berkshire Creatives is getting full access to the amazing resources right in their backyard.”
As part of the promotion of this effort, all participating organizations have added a clickable button to their home sites linking back to berkshirecreative.org/fieldtrips. “With this type of collaboration,” says Fruscio, “teachers visiting one participating organization’s website will be able to, with a single click, easily access educational opportunities throughout the Berkshires. Each organizations website becomes a portal to the whole. This is the kind of efficient collaboration and innovation we strive for.”
Organizations interested in participating in berkshirecreative.org/fieldtrips can contact Berkshire Creative at info@berkshirecreative.org.
