There are many organizations and businesses that will actually come to your school to provide experiences for your students. One is the public library. They often do puppet shows and story time at the library for students, but they will do the same for you at your school. One school in our system had the Creative Discovery Museum from Chattanooga come to their school and do some really neat activities with their students. They also had the Atlanta Falcons mascot come! I'm sure there are many others. You would simply need to do your research and see what fun you can find!

Up until this year, the grade I teach have not been on any field trips. We really wanted to take out students somewhere because we live in a poverty district. We did research and found a few places that would pay for us to go there, even the gas. Now, some of the teachers had to attend a workshop, so that we could go, but it is definitely worth it. Many colleges have museums and gardens that will pay for a field trip. You should look into that. There are also online field trips you can do with museums. I know that isn't the same, but you can bring the atmosphere to your classroom and request a sack lunch, so it makes the students feel like they are not at the school. Be creative. Students love different.

You could possibly use the idea of a virtual field trip through google or apple navigation maps to show students historical landmarks. I have had a few history teachers say that students enjoyed going on virtual field trips on their ipads to discover various historical landmarks.

Our school is definitely in the same situation. All of our students receive free breakfast and lunch, as it is a Title I school. In the ninth grade, we read about the Holocaust as it is told in Elie Wiesel's novel, Night. On the Smart Board, we take Virtual Field Trips. There are many websites, even down to Google Maps (street view) that will allow you to take tours of many different locations.

There are many trips that don't need funding such as local parks that are walking distance! I think outdoor activities are a great way to incorporate lessons about nature and science and can go a long way. Especially if the students have less exposure, a small trip can go a long way and spark some real interest for them to expand their knowledge further.

The first person to speak with would be the principle, if that fails I would try to talk to the school book keeper. Not a lot of options in this situation.

Virtual field trips are of good use for situations for situtions like this and allow students to go across the world without leaving the classroom and some of them you can actually interact with other people.

Sometimes depending on what state and county your in they have something called the Great American Teach-In (or GATI). It's where different people come from different jobs and talk to the students. Depending on the type of school (elementary or middle) they may see 4 or 5 different people during the day. The students actually go to the people throughout the school, so they can burn off energy as they walk. They may see a service dog and their trainer, or a story teller, or even the cafeteria managers, to see how and where the food is prepped. It's great because they can ask the people anything regarding their jobs and usually the people bring in artifacts about their jobs to show the students.

Virtual reality field trips

A lot of places you would go on field trips have really awesome virtual tours online. This could be worth a try.

Simply going outside can go a long way. Students are not outside to explore the terrain, the life in the ecosystem, or what is actually goin on with the Earth. A fun learning lesson can be done just by going to the yard where recess is held and pointing out environmental factors such as giving them booklets of what may be found in the area (bugs, trees, types of flowers) to check off on a checklist. Then, as it gets more tiring walking around they can be given coloring sheets to color in the insects and flowers they saw that day while having a fun lunch of pizza or something cheap that the class can enjoy.

Maybe having a class cultural party that all grades participate in and all teachers put in the effort to make. Each classroom can be a different place around the world and the classes rotate from class to class and get to spend 30 minutes in each class learning about the place and seeing all the traditions and cultures. and to make it an assignment you could have the compare and contrast where they live to their favorite place from the party.

The classes can do fundraisers to earn the extra money for the field trips, car washes is a great example or even a go fund me account.