School Programs - fields trips and traveling programs

General Information

Topics

About Field Trips

The Friends of Tryon Creek State Park offer hands-on, experiential field trips that teach basic concepts in science and natural history. We serve preschools through high schools across the metropolitan area, and cater each program to the students’ age, background and experience. On every field trip, students will spend time outdoors, rain or shine, so be sure to dress for the weather. All are designed to promote critical thinking, develop problem solving skills, and foster positive relationships with the natural world.

Program costs:
$4.50 per child (morning program)
$7.00 per child (full day program)

Morning: For each 2-hour morning program, students spend 1.5 hours in the field and a half-hour in the classroom (Sensational Senses is shorter). Trained volunteer Nature Guides hike with students in small groups of 10 or less, offering an intimate setting for exploration and scientific inquiry. Schools schedule a start time between 9 and 10AM.

Sensational Senses
preschool-1st grade

The Hidden World of Slugs
3rd-8th grade

Adaptable Animals
1st-5th grade

Ethnobotany
3rd-8th grade

Forest Highs & Lows
2nd-6th grade

Create A Healthy Stream
1st-5th grade

Watershed Watch
5th-12th grade

Alien Invaders
4th-12th grade

Geology Rocks!
preschool-8th grade

Lunch: We will reserve our covered, open-air shelter with benches for your class if you wish to bring lunch to have after your morning program. You may be expected to share the shelter with another group.

Full-Day: Each 4-hour full-day program includes a morning program (2 hours), lunch (.5 hours), and afternoon program (1.5 hours). Students participate in interactive group activities or service projects that build on concepts introduced in the morning program.

About Traveling Programs

If you can’t come to the Park, we’ll bring our programs to you! A trained educator will come to your school with hands-on activities exploring a natural history theme. Each program serves 30 students, and lasts one hour. All programs are based in the classroom, and may include outdoor activities. We require a minimum of two programs per visit.

Program costs:
$75 per program (up to 30 children)

Registration

Field trips and traveling programs are available weekdays from September through early June, including the winter months. We accomodate a maximum of 60 students per day for field trips and 3 programs a day for traveling programs. Dates fill quickly, so please plan ahead of time. We schedule programs over email, the phone, or in person Monday-Friday between 9 and 5. We will email or mail you a confirmation packet. To hold your place, we must receive full payment within two weeks of registration. Visit our website for more details and our refund policy.

Sensational Senses preschool-1st grade
Morning 1.5 hours	Use all your senses to experience the natural world. Listen for birds, and look for mole hills. Feel cones, animal fur and bark, and smell different kinds of leaves. This program is designed to introduce younger children to the environment, encourage observation, and foster a sense of wonder.
Traveling	We’ll bring smells, sounds and touchable textures from the park to your class. Given time journey outside to explore all the things to smell, feel, see and hear around your school. Discover hidden treasures found all the way from the tops of trees to forest burrows! <back to top>

The Hidden World of Slugs 3rd-8th grade
Morning	Touch a banana slug! Learn how a slug chews with no teeth, sees without eyes, and moves with no bones. In the forest, search for your spotty yellow friends. Explore how they decompose logs and fallen leaves by eating “dead stuff,” and discover the role of other decomposers in the forest ecosystem. This is an excellent introduction to the carbon cycle.
Full-Day	Mushrooms, worms, termites—the forest is full of organisms that make soil, and soil is full of life. Check out samples of soil in various stages of decomposition, and see for yourself how a leaf turns into dirt. We’ll take a close look at live worms, and each student will build a miniature composting worm bin to take home, or we’ll make a large one for your classroom.
Traveling	Have decomposers—will travel! Let us bring our banana slugs or red worms to you. Choose to either observe a slug’s unique anatomy and explore its role in decomposition; or, take a close look at live worms and make a worm bin for your class. Then, find out how these nifty critters are part of the carbon cycle! <back to top>

Adaptable Animals 1st-5th grade Choose from the programs below to explore animal adaptations. On the hike, your class will discover how every creature and plant is specially built to eat, sleep, and survive in Northwest forests.
Morning	Beavers How are beavers adapted to chew down trees, swim quickly, and survive in cold water? Learn how these amazing mammals are built to live in their environment, from webbed feet and sharp teeth to waterproof fur. Birds Every bird has a beak, but how are hummingbird beaks different from hawk beaks, and why? Can you identify the feet of waders, hunters and swimmers? Look at the adaptations of differnt birds, from a woodpecker’s elastic tongue to an owl’s night vision. Spiders Sept-Nov only Fall is spiderweb season at Tryon Creek. Hike through the park to find the webs of these acrobatic invertebrates. From steel-srong silk to claws that scale walls, find out how spiders are adapted to hunt. In the classroom, meet our tarantulas and make a giant web. Amphibians March-June only Spring is the time to find chirping tree frogs, slithering salamanders, and other amphibians in the forest. Meet tadpoles and frogs in our classroom, and learn about their life-cycle. Then search the crooks and crannies of the forest for our local species. Does Tryon Creek provide good amphibian habitat?
Full-Day	Do all creatures have adaptations? Students break into groups to explore pelts, bones and feathers of Pacific Northwest mammals and birds. Using natural materials, each child will imagine and create a new animal, identifying its particular adaptations to find food, build a home, and escape predators.
Traveling	Choose from Beavers, Birds, or Spiders (Amphibians is available March–June), and we’ll bring the indoor portion of these programs to your classroom. Additional activities designed for the traveling program explore the physiology, adaptations and lives of these animals. <back to top>

Ethnobotany 3rd-8th grade
Morning	What do people need to survive? Discover how Pacific Northwest Native peoples used the forest around them to provide shelter, food, and other necessities. Touch baskets, mats, and carvings, and learn how they are made. On our hike, identify plants in the forest that provide clothing, food, building supplies, and medicine, exploring how the forest gave life to people in our region for thousands of years.
Full-Day	Practice traditional plant technologies yourself! Choose two of the four following activities: twine cordage from natural materials; listen to a Native American story, and practice storytelling; use dyes derived from roots and bark to tint fabric; or look at a model Chinook plankhouse, and see if you can build a small waterproof shelter.
Traveling	Using materials and curriculum from the morning program, we’ll explore what it takes for people to survive, and learn about Native Americans on the lower Columbia River. How does the forest provide everyday necessities? Then, choose one of the full-day activities to complete your program. <back to top>

Forest Highs & Lows 2nd-6th grade
Morning	Explore the layers of the forest, and the habitat trees create from the canopy to the soil. As a group in the classroom, students will “create” a tree, modeling how plants transport nutrients, sugar and water between roots and leaves. Children will observe different kinds of trees and plants and where they grow on a hike through the woods.
Full-Day	How do trees turn light into sugar? Play the photosynthesis game, acting out how plants create their own food with this full–body introduction to chemistry. Then, make a model of the layers of a forest using clay and natural material and, given time, collect different kinds of leaves in the forest, and sort them by shape and color with the aid of a dichotomous key.
Traveling	We’ll bring our favorite tree activities to you. Your class will “create” a tree, then choose one of the full-day activities: photosynthesis, leaf ID, or forest layers (described above). <back to top>

Create A Healthy Stream 1st-5th grade
Morning	Will fish want to live in this creek? Build a model creek, including rocks, logs, gravel, trees, insects, and fish. Then, visit Tryon Creek and look for the signs of a healthy stream habitat. Test for pH, dissolved oxygen, and temperature. See if you can spot crayfish and water-striders!
Full-Day	Did you know that salmon, steelhead, and Pacific lamprey were once abundant in Tryon Creek? As a group, your studends will “become” fish and attempt to migrate through obstacles to spawn.
Traveling	Build a model of a healthy stream in your classroom, and learn about the salmon life cycle. Venture outdoors to test the water quality of a stream near your school, or test water samples from Tryon Creek. <back to top>

Watershed Watch 5th-12th grade
Morning	What is a watershed? How does it function to absorb rainwater, recharge groundwater, and maintain stream flows? Looking at a topographic model, maps and aerial photographs, examine the different land uses in the Tryon watershed. Explore how humans impact a stream system. At the creek, test for pH, dissolved oxygen, temperature and turbidity.
Full-Day	To observe erosion in quick time, create and “rain” on a model watershed. How does water shape the landscape? <back to top>

Alien Invaders 4th-12th grade
Morning	Where do invasive plants come from, and how do they threaten our forests? Using the techniques of a field biologist, survey two plots for different plants. How is biodiversity threatened by noxious weeds? Define the difference between native, non-native and invasive plants
Traveling	Put your knowledge to work, and join us for an ivy pull service project. Students, teachers and adult chaperones will roll up their sleeves, put on gloves, and flex their muscles! Join the ongoing effort to remove English ivy in Tryon Creek. Gloves provided; wear sturdy shoes, long pants, and expect to get dirty! <back to top>

Geology Rocks! preschool-8th grade
Traveling	We’ll bring rocks from near and far. Your class will explore the texture, color, and feel of each rock, and learn how geologists classify them. Then, you’ll model the formation of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rock. Each student will keep their own “rock” at the end of the day. <back to top>