About once a month, employees of the Petco store at Jordan Creek Town Center play host to a busload of kids eager to hold a snake and learn about taking care of their pets.

In addition to getting a hands-on experience with many types of animals, each student leaves with a goody bag filled with educational materials, coloring sheets and tattoos, said Brian Wilson, the store’s manager.

The program, which has been offered for the past three years by each of the eight Petco stores in Iowa, is provided through the Field Trip Factory, a Chicago-based company that contracts with retail chains nationwide to provide local field trip opportunities to schools. The program is paid for by the retailers providing the trips.

Within the next two weeks, the Field Trip Factory expects to announce a new partnership with a national retailer that will bring its Healthy Choices field trip to about 20 store locations throughout Iowa, said Susan Singer, president and founder of the Field Trip Factory.

“Your area is one of the areas we’ve been working hard to get that nutrition program into,” Singer said. “It’s really about having children make healthy choices all day long, from brushing their teeth in the morning to choosing healthy snacks and exercising. We offer it nationally in a variety of different retailers.”

The Field Trip Factory currently offers 20 ongoing programs throughout the country. Last year, the 6-year-old company arranged more than 18,000 field trips, with an average of 30 students and eight chaperones on each trip. Among the offerings are a literacy curriculum for bookstores, a financial literacy program for banks and a nutrition program for natural foods stores.

The trips are arranged with the schools by the Field Trip Factory, which provides the curriculum and e-mail reminders to the schools, Wilson said. .

“Honestly, we don’t have as many field trips as we would like,” he said. “We get one a month or so. It’s mostly the schools close by, and a lot of home schoolers, believe it or not. It’s a good program, but it’s too good of a secret, unfortunately.”

For more information about the Field Trip Factory, visit www.fieldtripfactory.com, or call the company at (800) 987-6409.