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Recommended Field Trips

Pathways for Learning

Need help planning a focused field trip? Museum educators have matched teachers' most sought-after science topics with Museum exhibits, films, and presentations to create suggested field trip itineraries. Use these "pathways for learning" as sample guides as you make your way through the Exhibit Halls. Note: Some offerings may require separate tickets.

We also offer downloadable, themed guides for your chaperones to bring with them on your field trip. Visit our Field Trip Activity Worksheets section for more information.

Design a Field Trip for:

Earth & Space Science

Pre K - 2

Dinosaurs & Fossils

What can we learn from these colossal creatures of the past?

  • Step off the bus and into a model of a giant dinosaur footprint in the Museum's front plaza. What can you infer from its position, depth, and shape?
  • Move on to Dinosaurs: Modeling the Mesozoic to explore fossils, life-size models, and even dinosaur dung to gain a sense of how paleontologists compile evidence.
  • Check out Natural Mysteries, an exhibit that offers the chance to explore fossils of animals and plants that lived long ago.
  • Last, examine a Discovery Box, or check out rocks, minerals, and fossils in the Discovery Center

Grades 3 - 8

Discover Planet Earth

Explore Earth's geology and geography.

Grades 3 - 8

What's the Weather?

Learn about the basic principles of weather and other natural forces.

  • Head to the WeatherWise exhibit to find out about the scales of weather and to try your hand at "nowcasting."
  • Catch a 20-minute Making Weather presentation, in which a Museum educator explains how air, water, and temperature create weather, and a cloud and a snowstorm are created on stage!
  • A viewing of Hurricane on the Bayou, Stormchasers, or Forces of Nature brings the hair-raising power of weather to life.
  • Finish the day with a visit to the Theater of Electricity for a dazzling indoor lightning show.

Life Sciences

Pre K - 2

Bugs & Butterflies!

Discover the amazing adaptations of insects, the most diverse group of animals on Earth.

  • Begin the day in the Butterfly Garden, a living exhibit filled with sunlight, plants, and free-flying butterflies. What traits and behaviors do the butterflies share? (A special reserved program for grades K - 3 is available on Wednesday mornings.)
  • Continue on to the Bugs! 3-D film, which explores insect life through the adventures of a praying mantis and a butterfly in the lush Borneo rainforest.
  • Head over to the Making Models exhibit and examine the giant grasshopper model: what does it help us understand about insects?
  • Finish the day with a visit to Natural Mysteries to practice the skills of sorting and grouping organisms and to explore thousands of items — including insects — from the Museum's extensive natural history collection.

Pre K - 2

Looking Closely: Observations of the Natural World

Learn about the connections between organisms and their environments.

  • Uncover the world's hidden patterns by applying classifications skills in Natural Mysteries.
  • Attend a Live Animal presentation and watch a trained handler introduce a baby alligator, a screech owl, a sprightly flying squirrel, or another of the more than 100 animals that reside in our Live Animal Center.
  • Visit the Discovery Center to observe small animals at close range, examine rocks, and use magnifying glasses and microscopes with the aid of staff and volunteers.

Grades 3 - 8

Animal Adaptations

Learn about animal adaptations and survival strategies while observing live animals.

  • Learn about diversity and variability within a group of animals by visiting Frogs: A Chorus of Colors (on exhibit February 13 - May 24, 2009.) There students can examine the behavior, habitats, and evolution of amphibians.
  • Then, attend a Live Animal presentation to learn more about nature from the scaly, furry, and feathered residents of our own Live Animal Center.
  • Finally, explore the diversity of life with the Omni film Amazon (available February 2009).

Grades 3 - 8

Evolution in the Exhibit Halls

A walk through the Museum reveals evidence for biological evolution.

  • Begin in The Human Body Connection, where you can learn about human evolution by examining models of fossil hominids. While there, observe a lively family of cotton-top tamarins and talk to a Museum volunteer to find out how these animals are related to us.
  • Then, at 10:00 a.m. see the 20-minute presentation Survivor: Planet Earth (available February 2009), where you can explore natural selection and evidence for evolution through hands-on activities and demonstrations.
  • Take your Evolution Adventure worksheets to Natural Mysteries! With the four-page study programs, you can learn the evolution stories of some of the most popular organisms in the Exhibit Halls.

Technology & Engineering

Grades 3 - 8

Simple Machines & Engineering

Practice problem solving through the engineering design process.

  • Observe the many simple machines found in the audiokinetic sculpture in the lower lobby.
  • Move on to the Clark Collection of Mechanical Movement Models, then figure out how simple machines are used in the model steam engine on display nearby.
  • Starting at 10:30 a.m. take your group of less than 35 students through the daily hands-on activities of a design challenge.
  • Explore the new Innovative Engineers exhibit, which profiles engineers who have made a difference in how we live and work.
  • Last, experience robotic, computer, and communication technologies that affect our daily lives in Cahners ComputerPlace.