The purpose of this qualitative study is to analyse the meaning of field work on the learning process of chemistry in high school from the perspective of students and teachers. The advantages and disadvantages that this activity supposes when it is used as a didactic tool in the teaching of chemistry were also analysed. The results showed that both students and teachers perceive field work as a very significant activity for learning chemistry, especially due to the contribution of natural environments in the establishment of "real" or "authentic" learning scenarios which benefit a greater development and integration of concepts theory and practice. It was also shown in this study that during the analysed fieldwork activities, and according to what students and teachers expressed, it was possible to effectively combine the "doing" and the “learning”, which reflects the applicability of Dewey's pragmatic theory on the learning process during fieldwork, or expressed in another way, the pragmatic character of this pedagogical activity. The participants, however, highlighted a few factors such as the high cost of the activity, the weather dependency, or the impossibility to carry out more complex investigations, as negative aspects which in some way contribute to understand why this type of activity is not carried out more frequently.