Q: After an awful winter, our family is planning a summer trip. No theme parks! We'd like to visit museums, natural areas and historic sites. What's the best way to research a trip with educational stops that will hold the attention of boys, ages 8 and 11, and a girl, 12?

A: Start early, plan smart and let the kids do much of the research, says Eric Hamilton, assistant director of the National Center for Science Literacy, Education and Technology at New York's American Museum of Natural History.

Hamilton offers families these tips:

-- Zero in on kids' interests. "That's rule No. 1. When kids choose the places to visit, they arrive excited to learn more because they own the decision," says Hamilton.

Get them to list their current passions. Are they into space? Technology? Art? Music? Wildlife? Using those as a guide, make a list of possibilities culled from sources such as travel magazines and guides such as Fodor's, Frommer's and Lonely Planet.

For museums, go to the American Alliance of Museums' website and click "Find a museum" (aam-us.org). The site covers everything from air and space, aquariums and art to natural history, planetariums and zoological parks.

Check the Association of Science-Technology Centers (astc.org) and the Association of Children's Museums (childrensmuseums.org). Find a list of sites and itineraries under the "Travel" heading on the website of the National Register of Historic Places (cr.nps.gov/nr).

Explore options at the National Park Service (npca.org) and National Conservation Lands (blm.gov/NLCS) for historic monuments, wilderness and conservation areas, scenic rivers and historic trails.

-- Settle on a geographic region. Don't spread yourselves too thin. "Too often, parents try to shoehorn in too many places across too many miles. Kids lose focus and everyone gets cranky," says Hamilton. Check local hotel and visitor's bureau sites for nearby attractions.

-- Refine your list: Print out descriptions for family discussion. Does everyone agree that the destination is worth the family's time and money?

-- Create a well-paced schedule. "Include variety and time to recharge batteries," says Jamie Stuve, president of the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse and Museum in Florida (jupiterlighthouse.org). For example, says Stuve, "if you're visiting northern Palm Beach, climb our spectacular lighthouse in the morning and kayak on the Loxahatchee River in the afternoon. The next morning, take in the South Florida Science Center (sfsciencecenter.org). After lunch, visit the Juno Beach Loggerhead Marinelife Center (marinelife.org)."

-- Double-check logistics: As your trip approaches, confirm hours of operation, locations, parking, pricing, driving distances, traffic patterns and so on. Check to see if special demonstrations or programs have been added.

-- Lock in some learning before you leave. In a trip notebook, make a short list of three things your children want to see and do at each of your stops. "Build interest by talking about specific things they will see and do," says Hamilton.

-- Remember, this isn't school. No quizzes, warns Hamilton. "It's the conversations parents have back at home that really help kids remember what they learned. Talk often about what they liked, what they thought and what questions they still have. Most important, enjoy the memories! Recall the highlights often!"

(Do you have a question about your child's education? Email it to Leanna@aplusadvice.com. Leanna Landsmann is an education writer who began her career as a classroom teacher. She has served on education commissions, visited classrooms in 49 states to observe best practices, and founded Principal for a Day in New York City.)

Q: Our daughter is a rising senior, looking at colleges. She's an A student and top athlete who can probably get a soccer scholarship. We'd rather she focus on her studies and not have obligations to a team. She'd be the first in our family to graduate from college. Are there good, affordable four-year schools?

A: "The fact that your daughter is an A student while playing on her high school's soccer team is commendable," says Kevin McMullin, founder of Collegewise, which provides admissions counseling to prospective college students, and co-author of "If the U Fits: Expert Advice on Finding the Right College and Getting Accepted" (Random House/The Princeton Review, 2014). "These credentials will serve her well, not only with regard to her prospects for admission but also her chances for getting financial aid."

McMullin also says admissions officers will value the fact that your daughter may be the first in your family to attend and potentially graduate from college.

Don't be scared by the sticker price, McMullin tells parents and students: "Financial aid offices have power to offer more generous aid packages to students that the admissions office would most like to enroll. If a school really wants a student, it also can offer a merit-aid scholarship that has nothing to do with financial need."

Start by listing colleges where your daughter has a particularly strong chance of admission based on her test scores and application stats, suggests McMullin. Her guidance counselor should be able to help compile it. Look for prospects in "The Best Value Colleges, 2014 Edition" (Random House/The Princeton Review, 2014).

Next, identify schools where her aid chances are strong. The Princeton Review publishes Financial Aid Ratings (FAR) for more than 600 schools. "These numerical scores from 60 to 99 are based on more than 30 factors, covering data on cost of attendance, generosity with aid and academics," says McMullin. "Sometimes it costs less to attend a pricey college than a less expensive one due to the generous scholarships and grants many schools dole out that don't have to be paid back." For example, Princeton and Yale made the Review's 2014 Financial Aid Rating Honor Roll with perfect FAR scores (www.princetonreview.com).

A critically important part of the applications process is submitting applications for financial aid. The primary one is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA); FAFSA forms for your daughter's applications will be released in January 2015.

"This is a complex form with more than 100 questions. It is used by colleges to get a financial snapshot of the family resources to determine the family's 'EFC,' or estimated financial contribution," says McMullin. "That means what the colleges expect you to ante up."

Each calculates EFC differently, so your daughter's aid eligibility could be higher at one college and lower at another based on which aid form the colleges use.

McMullin encourages your daughter to apply to a financial safety school that you could afford if she receives no financial aid.

"Good prospects are public universities in your state," he says.

(Do you have a question about your child's education? Email it to Leanna@aplusadvice.com. Leanna Landsmann is an education writer who began her career as a classroom teacher. She has served on education commissions, visited classrooms in 49 states to observe best practices, and founded Principal for a Day in New York City.)

Q: My 7th-grade daughter got a zero on a report because her teacher says almost all of it was "stolen from the Internet." My daughter says everyone does it and doesn't see why it's cheating. Don't schools teach students research skills? She'll need to know that for college.

A: Never mind college; she needs to learn now about plagiarism. Teens are so used to sharing information online that many don't understand that they can't just grab a photo, poem or paragraph, and then weave it into an assignment and pass the work off as their own.

Yes, schools do teach proper research and writing practices. Educators from the elementary grades through high school incorporate research and attribution skills into media literacy lessons and specific classes such as social studies and language arts.

Many schools have crafted explicit policies to combat plagiarism. For example, the policy at White Station Middle School in Memphis, Tenn., provides "students with guidelines to enable academic judgment, develop integrity, and preserve honor." It spells out how to give proper credit to another's work and outlines consequences for failing to do so. (Go to www.scsk12.org/schools/whitestation.ms/site/index.shtml and click on the "WSMS Plagiarism Policy" link.)

Teaching students how to do research without plagiarizing is part of the Common Core State Standards. The Grade 8 English Language Arts Standards state that students will learn to "gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation."

Award-winning California middle-school teacher Heather Wolpert-Gawron is aware of the challenge. "How do we as educators help students respect other people's work and not abuse it in this era of accessible information?" she writes in a blog post at edutopia.org. "The answer is, of course, to teach ethical academic behavior in a targeted way, to model it yourself and to hold students accountable."

She has created a terrific online scavenger hunt that teaches online ethics. The "hunt" leads students to a definition of ethics, a quiz to test "netiquette savvy," and Internet explorations through links to Creation Commons, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Library and the Library of Congress.

The final step in the hunt "is a contract of sorts," writes Wolpert-Gawron, where students type their names, stating that they "understand that every image and piece of music must be cited on every project from here on in throughout this school year."

Find Wolpert-Gawron's scavenger hunt on her blog post, "Common Core in Action: Teaching Online Ethics," at edutopia.org.

It's always been a parent's job to teach kids that appropriating the work of others is cheating. It's just a little harder in today's online world.

To make it easier, Wolpert-Gawron has written a fun teacher resource, "Internet Literacy, Grades 6-8" (Teacher Created Resources, 2010). It shows teens how to read through layers of links and use reliable research methods; it also covers "netiquette," online ethics, safety, privacy and laws. There are also tips for networking, collaborating and contributing online.

You might be surprised how much you both can learn from this little volume!

(Do you have a question about your child's education? Email it to Leanna@aplusadvice.com. Leanna Landsmann is an education writer who began her career as a classroom teacher. She has served on education commissions, visited classrooms in 49 states to observe best practices, and founded Principal for a Day in New York City.)