IRVINE, Calif.—About 30 fifth-graders let out a collective “ooh!” as a monkey munched on dinner in front of them. The students asked questions of an expert, took notes and waved goodbye to the monkey. Then they returned to their seats at Plaza Vista School about 40 miles south of Los Angeles.  Their virtual field trip to an animal sanctuary in the U.K. was over.  In the wake of recession-era budget cuts and increased pressure on school performance, field trips at some schools consist of a webcam, projection screen and Internet connection instead of permission slips, brown-bag lunches and school buses. The techniques can be used to cut down the cost, time and expense of some real-world trips while expanding the number of possible field-trip-like experiences.  At Plaza Vista School, where roughly one-in-three students qualify for free or reduced federal lunches, a field trip can cost between $10 and $50 per student, depending on the activity. The costs of a virtual field trip are typically much smaller: a webcam at the school costs between $40 and $100, Internet is typically already installed, and the programming is often free of charge.  “It’s a chance for kids to develop a curiosity,” said Scott Bedley, the fifth-grade teacher who began using virtual field trips more seriously in the past three years. “What this gives me is almost like an on-demand way to connect kids with something beyond just what they can find in the classroom or in textbooks.”  Proponents say the virtual field trip is an accessible and inexpensive tool to engage students with a seemingly endless variety of cultural sites and experts. But others caution it can’t replace the real thing.  “It’s not what I would call a field trip, but the upside is that it’s better than nothing,” said Elizabeth Merritt, founding director of the Center for the Future of Museums at the American Alliance of Museums, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit, on the growing appetite for virtual field trips.  Videoconferencing provides the most basic option. Some museums are experimenting with in-house robots that teachers and students can move around remotely to see attractions. And then there is an emerging field in virtual reality that allows a 3-D visit to Wall Street or the Great Wall of China.  In a survey of school leaders on how they had made changes since the recession, about 43% said they considered eliminating field trips in the 2012-13 school year, while about 37% said they never considered it, according to the American Association of School Administrators.  At the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, program leaders switched their focus to virtual field trips from on-site outreach in schools’ gyms and auditoriums in early 2013. “It’s allowed us to expand our reach,” said Joy Kubarek, vice president of learning at the aquarium, where they expect to nearly double the number of students served, with about 13,000 students each year.  Earlier this month, a cluster of first-graders at Rowe Elementary, a charter school on the northwest side of Chicago, watched Shedd animal-care staff feed sharks in a behind-the-scenes virtual field trip and stood in front of the school’s webcam to ask questions.  “The novelty of it was not lost on our kids,” said Erin Fergus, who co-teaches first grade there and said that the budget for field trips has decreased in recent years. “We went to the Shedd last year but we didn’t get the same access.”  A first-grade field trip for about 110 students costs roughly $750, according to Ms. Fergus. The $1,000 annual budget can pay entirely for one field trip and half of another. Teachers look for grants or pull from other budgets to pay for the rest of the costs.  At Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in northwest Arkansas, Anne Kraybill, the director of education, opted not to move forward with the videoconferencing field trips because the technology isn’t seamless, noting sound glitches and screen-size issues. “Something was so lost in the dialogue on camera,” she said. “It ended up becoming more of a broadcast model.”  An academic study at her museum found that students, especially those in rural or poor schools, gained skills like critical thinking, historical empathy and tolerance after attending field trips.  Even students who attend virtual trips acknowledge a bit of the experience is lost translation.  “You don’t have to spend all that money, and you get to learn new stuff,” said Enzo Fukunaga, a 11-year-old fifth-grader in Irvine. “But on a webcam, you don’t get to see all the details.”  Write to Caroline Porter at caroline.porter@wsj.com
The field trip, a classic school ritual, is getting a makeover, with more schools videoconferencing their students all over the globe in lieu of packing them up and busing them to cultural events.