MDN Future School educational tours provide valuable educational opportunities away from the classroom, without using textbooks and other tools as used normally in school. Students on Educational Tours can learn while having fun in a more informal environment. On the Educational Tours the staff members do hands-on teaching with the students — such as at a science center or historical museum — the children are generally extremely excited to learn from these new sights.

When students and teachers are together outside the classroom, new educational environments and experiences are possible. Students have the opportunity to observe many things that are not available at school, including exotic wildlife, rare plants and maybe even the stars if the Educational Tours is to a planetarium. The Educational Tours are discussed beforehand because it allows students to know what they will experience during their time away from school.

Getting away from the everyday atmosphere of the classroom gives students an opportunity to spend time with each other in a new environment. They are able to connect on more of a personal level without the structure of the normal school day. Students are able to spend much of the educational tour days in small groups, observing, chatting and learning about each other. Having an Educational Tour allows students to bond with classmates they don’t know very well. Part of how students benefit from educational tours is by gaining new perspectives on the world. This is especially true for more extensive Educational Tours where students travel farther away from home. By coming into direct contact with a different environment or even a new culture or language, students of MDN Future Schools can understand their place better in the community and develop openness to differences in others.