School Group Field Trips

 At our project site, located at Two Rivers Park, we are building the city's first sustainable agroforestry public park space. Here, we're integrating lasting food systems into the landscape with the goal of creating abundance for both wildlife and people in our community. The public is invited to be active participants in this process through field trips, volunteerism, and other programming we offer. Our space is truly a "living laboratory" where students can identify problems and join us in finding solutions! We're all about trial and error, the scientific method for learning! GROW is a place to try out ideas, discover the fine balances of the ecosystem, and understand how our own human activities have direct effects for earth systems. 

Quick Information:

  • Field trips available on Fridays from 9am - 2pm

  • All ages/grade levels can be served through this program

  • Cost is $5/student

We can accommodate both large groups and individual classes. Large group trips offer students a broad view, whereas small groups can focus on specific science standards. Some examples of small group field trip education that we can offer include:

Field Trip Education Topics:
Botany
Botany

Parts of the plant, plant life cycle, flower dissections, interdependence of plants and animals, heredity, seed production/collection/saving/germination, invasive plants and their removal, identifying native plants, edible flowers, herbs, permaculture farming, aquaponics (growing plants on top of a body of water containing fish), plus many more!

Urban Agroforestry
Urban Agroforestry

Identifying trees, native plants vs. invasive non-native plants, invasive plants and their effect on the ecosystem, planting new trees, guiding human activity to preserve forest habitats, planting for wildlife, forest farming

Entomology
Entomology

Insects and their role in the ecosystem, beneficial insects vs. ‘pest’ insects, life cycles of insects, insects in the food chain, insects as pollinators/decomposers/pest control

Urban Wildlife
Urban Wildlife

Identifying animals that occupy urban spaces (from back yards to pocket forests like ours.) We can go many directions with this topic, from conservation, to their role in the food chain, to study of individual life cycles and habitats. This is where collaboration with teachers really comes into play.

Vermiculture
Vermiculture

Vermiculture is the study of earthworms!! Anatomy, life cycle, habits, habitat, and composting with worms are typical topics to cover. We have our own worm bins which can be used in these lessons.

Invasive Non-Native Flora
Invasive Non-Native Flora

Invasive non-native flora are introduced plants that negatively alter their new environment. Invasive non-native flora can take resources away from native plants and cause them to die. It is important to be able to identify invasive non-native flora, so that it can be taken out of the environment for native fauna and flora to thrive.

““Our third graders had such a great time on our field trip today! So many of them told me ‘today was the best day ever!’””
— Lockland Elementary

  • At GROW, we can accommodate full grade levels of students with a broad overview visit

    This is where students get to visit all the major areas of focus (urban forest revitalization, silvopasture orchard, demonstration gardens, and nature play/learning area.) Most groups utilize this as a first visit experience, a sort of "Intro to Ecology and Environmental Sciences" lesson. It can be adapted to groups as young as kindergarten, all the way up to the high school level.

  • We can also customize field trips for individual classes to help students achieve specific academic learning goals.

    Our project is broad-ranging, covering multiple types of ecosystems and a wide variety of standards-based science objectives. We are happy to work with teachers on an individual level to offer engaging experiences which support their own work in the classroom. These kinds of field trips are best approached with smaller groups of children, such as an individual class. They allow for a much deeper level of engagement on a small area of focus.

  • No field trip to GROW is complete without some free time in Kidlandia.

    Kidlandia is what we call our nature play area. Here, kids make the rules and take an active role in caring for the forest system. They also build forts, climb, dig, and explore. There is a wide, well-marked, trail which winds through it (built by kids!) and plenty of self-directed learning opportunities. Kidlandia is also a vibrant wildlife habitat, being home to white tailed deer, red foxes, opossums, raccoons, little brown bats, barred owls, and more. We seek to help children understand that we can "share" urban forest spaces with them by leaving it better than we found it and allocating areas that we leave undisturbed. Be sure your group plans ahead to build-in time for students to explore this magical place!

If you are interested in booking a field trip to GROW please submit the form below and a member of our team will reach out to you!