I am curious about educational field trips is there some site that one can look up what companies give tours students or recreational tours?

I know some power plants like the hoover dam , or some electric generator plants one can take tours.
But I am wondering if there is tours for oil/gas refineries or mining /ore refineries or water/sewer company tours or nuclear plants or other such things.

It would be great for engineering students to gain actual physical experiences of what they read.

Not sure if there is a cost for some of these but curious would be nice to go on some of these engineering infrastructure / physics tours as well

And to me I don't see a centralized site that one can lookup what is available for tours/education field trips would be nice. Don't really know of a convenient method yet.

 

It's not as common as it once was. It was mainly a liability problem before Homeland Security mandated requirements on Critical Infrastructure Security.
It's a real pain to have an 'official' tour inside a operational facility unless someone at the executive level approves it because people have to be vetted in someway like being enrolled in a local school with background information. It still happens but you just have to know someone there who's willing to be responsible for you, so just call and ask.

 

That is a stupid thing home land security issues with this.
Even if there was a mr magoo run ramped in there chances are ridiculously low that he would accidently do something catastrophic ...

But for students and people learning or having a passion to learn there going to deny people to gain the ability to improve or learn or actually see the site. Not talking about having no supervision if that scares them. Makes it so difficult security when it is in most cases an unnecessarily need .

I think sciences/engineering class would benefit from seeing the big picture as such it may even help intern decide if they really want to intern there. Also hobbiest gain new ideas or passionate about learn or going back to school can get more motivated or less in deciding if this is the right field for them.

I remember back in the day when we had tours of an electric plant it would to go back to that time now people are so up tie about security you can't even shit in some places with out asking it feel that just isn't right

Also when you restrict things you restrict ideas and creativity do the risk analysis out you will find the risk is so low... when did we ever have a major tour crash anything major ... even if it did I am sure it would be miner and take a couple hours to fix so what is the problem the math is in are favor ( are being the interested people obviously non- US citizens or sketch people can be told they can't )

 

Don't you think one can do some reconnoitering under the pretense of a tour?

I agree the risk of an "accident" is low. No one would "attack" the Hoover dam, or nuclear power plant during a tour.

There was a "security" expert at one of the companies "in the World Trade Center", that insisted on holding evacuation drills. That company suffered the least amount of losses. That expert also discussed the possibility of a plane attack and used Flight simulator to show how easily it could be done. This all was after the first attempt in the early 1990s using explosives to bring down the towers with a bomb laden truck in the garage.

Naw, there is nothing to worry about.

As long as there are people willing to do harm, there will be people trying to prevent it.

Why are there moats around castles? Why are the castle's walls so high with watch towers? Why the draw bridges?

Failure to plan is planning to fail. Coach John Wooden of UCLA said that. It applies to endeavors further than basketball.

I'm sure one can arrange a tour once those attending the tour are vetted. The risk is evaluated.

As far as minimum risks for students, it's been rumored that Admiral Rickover would take students to a small nuclear reactor, introduce a failure and have the students resolve the problem. Fix it or die. Sounds like a tough exam.

 

That is a stupid thing home land security issues with this.
Even if there was a mr magoo run ramped in there chances are ridiculously low that he would accidently do something catastrophic ...

The Mr. Magoo's of the world we can handle at the company level but sometimes you have to call the feds.

 

The problem isn't the student that accidentally does something bad, it's the person that becomes a student so that they can deliberately do something bad, even if it's just looking around to see how things are done and what level of monitoring and access is needed and how security protocols might be circumvented as part of a later attack.

It's a balance between guarding against potential threats and not being so restrictive as to excessively curtail legitimate activities -- and it's not an easy balance to achieve and it will never be done optimally. Understandably, the people charged with enhancing security are going to tend to go overboard with precautions and restrictions both because that is their primary charge and also because they are the ones that the hammer will come down on after something happens.

 

Go to the career fairs at your university. Look up wich interesting local companies will be there. If you are in your junior or senior year and local manufacturing companies or infrastructure organizations are recruiting, many offer on-site visits and job shadowing opportunities. Even sites with homeland security requirements still have students. You just have to stay in contact with your university's placement office or career management office (or what ever these offices are called on your campus).

 

When you take on recreation trips ,every place you plan to go will want a insurance certificate. You must plan ahead and risk paying for more

, so many things can go wrong. People who travel have to be back on time for many reasons ,it sound easy and lots of fun and a money maker.

Some of these travel films don't show you the army behind the cameras for protection. You have to do this for years and have a name in the

business. The airlines, hotels and ships have travel trips arranged with governments ,a lot of money tied up in the business. You could have

one person to keep your group tied up with red tape for days. The travel business let people deal with there problems on there own.

 

How on Earth did a discussion about company tours turn to travel films and recreation trips? Someone's loosie in the house!