Preschoolers are taken on many field trips during the course of their preschool experience. Yet, little research investigates the effects of such curricular offerings on children's developing social and intellectual skills. Intuitively, educators tend to agree that field trips are beneficial to children. However, findings of relevant studies are inconclusive on this point. The purpose of this study was to determine whether field trips with prior and follow-up activities had a more positive effect on black preschool children's test performance than did field trips without such activities. The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) was used to assess treatment effects. A total of 52 urban black children between 4 and 5 years old were equally divided into an experimental group and a comparison group and were taken on 6 weekly field trips to places such as the local zoo and selected museums. Activities provided to the experimental group included drawing, discussing what was experienced on a trip, and acting out what was observed during a trip. Prior to leaving, experimental group participants and their teachers discussed what they were going to experience. Items experienced on the trips were selected to match items on the PPVT. Findings indicated that children exposed to structured field trips achieved greater gains on the PPVT than did children exposed to the non-structured field trips. (RH)