Educational Expeditions
Exciting STEAM Field Trips!
Educational Expeditions are for all 4K-12th grade students and homeschool groups. Our dynamic, exploratory field trips engage young minds with exciting experiments, real-world problem-solving, and interactive challenges that inspire creativity and critical thinking. Become a Scout for a day, explore the outdoors while connecting classroom learning with hands-on experiences!
START YOUR ADVENTURE TODAY!
Program Details:
-
Designed for students 4K (4-5 year olds) through 12th Grade
-
Align with Georgia Standards of Excellence and South Carolina Standards
-
Led by trained facilitators and developed by collaborative scientists and educators.
-
Collect your custom patch for each expedition!
-
Ask about our customizable programs for Homeschool and Professional Development.
-
Outdoor classrooms and indoor spaces allow our field trips to run rain or shine!
Contact us today! Fill out the online interest form below or call the Georgia Carolina Council at 706-733-5277 x108 for more information or to check available dates.
Early Childhood- Lower Elementary
4K-5K (Allow 2 hours), K-2nd (Allow 2.5 hours)
Nature Explorers
Some plants have leaves shaped like hearts, some like circles. Can you see shapes in the clouds? On a hike around the Nature and Adventure Center we will look for living and nonliving things while we collect pine cones and leaves to create our very own nature collage. We will get out our wiggles out in the field playing games using colors and practicing our counting.
Cha Cha Changes to an Ecosystem (Seasons and People)
What happens to plants and animals when the seasons change? When the leaves fall from the trees, where do they go? We will explore the forest looking for signs of the seasons and changes people have made to the environment around us.
Perfect Pollinators
Tasting with your toes, carrying pollen on your body, and visiting flowers at night, these are all ways our perfect pollinators help plants grow some of our very favorite fruits and vegetables. Plants and animals, including us depend on pollinators. What happens if they are all gone? Be a pollinator protector with us. We will explore the outdoors looking for pollinators in all stages of their life cycle, play a buggy game and plant a milkweed seed to take home.
Upper Elementary- 8th Grade
Upper Elementary 3-5, Advanced 6-8 (Allow 3 hours)
Nighttime at the NAC
** Can be modified for younger students**
When the sun sets, the secret show starts! Join us for a nighttime nature adventure where we’ll step into the secret world of nocturnal creatures and the mysterious processes that only come alive after dark. With flashlights in hand and ears tuned to the night, we’ll explore the sights, sounds, and shadows of the natural world. You might hear the hoot of an owl, the chirp of crickets, or the silent swoop of a bat on the hunt. We’ll learn why some animals sleep all day, how they’ve adapted to thrive in the dark, and what nature’s up to while we’re usually snoozing. We'll also discover night-blooming plants, glowing fungi, and the magic of moonlight on the forest floor. This field trip is all about celebrating the wild nightlife of the animal kingdom. So grab your gear, bring your curiosity, and let’s see what’s lurking in the twilight!
Forces in Motion
Be an engineer for a day and discover how forces are at work all around you. We’ll assign students to a series of fun team tasks that will test their ingenuity while using the scientific method to answer fundamental questions through experimentation and design.
Ecosystems and Pollinators
Students will become ecologists while on a nature hike, identifying abiotic and biotic factors while making connections between the trophic levels of a food web. They’ll learn the human impacts on ecosystems and the importance of pollinators for our planet. They will build land plots and conduct species surveys and analysis to determine the differences in ecosystems and the indicators of ecosystem health. Students will even get to help out our native pollinators with an art project that serves an important function.
Art Expeditions
What is art? How can we make art that says something about us? In this field trip, students will learn the elements of art and design and how to use those to create personal, powerful and culturally relevant pieces. Unleash your inner Van Gogh, explore multiple media and tools, exploring personal creativity and helping peers be comfortable in their own skin.
The Geology of Pollution
Get ready to get your hands dirty and dig deep as we explore soil composition, learn about erosion and the human impacts that are shaping our community and ecosystems. Students will be collecting soil samples, observing different types of erosion, learning about the impacts of plastic pollution on our oceans, and synthesizing this information to determine how they can make personal contributions to the healing of our planet.
Physics in Phun!
Become a physicist with us and take a walk through the scientific method as we learn about forces, making predictions, building rockets and testing your design. We will be experimenting with density, electromagnetic fields, competing in a static electricity race and launching rockets. Will your design win?
High School
High School 9th-12th, can be advanced level (Allow 3 hours)
Space Exploration
NASA is looking for you! Come be an engineer, spending the day learning about space exploration, and the international space station. The capstone event will be building and launching CO2 rockets and using equations to predict distance and then measure the results against your hypotheses.
Plant Science
Come experience hands-on botany and dendrology, learning the importance of plants and how humans connect to the ecosystem. Identify plants and trees using dichotomous keys and scientific language, and check soils, taking quantitative and qualitative measurements of the habitat around us. We’ll go for a mapped hike on a quest for the oldest oak on site, learn plant parts and the jobs of native plants to wildlife.
Biomimicry
Ready to think like nature’s best inventors? On this wild and wonderful field trip, students will tap into the genius of the natural world to crack real-world design challenges! From the way trees filter water to how spiders spin their webs, we’ll explore how nature’s clever tricks spark human innovation. These hands-on modules connect nature’s know-how with human needs—bridging the gap between ecosystems and everyday inventions. It’s the perfect launchpad for curious minds dreaming of futures in engineering, architecture, design, agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, or healthcare—because sometimes, the best ideas really do grow on trees!
- Our field trips are mapped into a 3 hour block, with programs running for 2.5 hrs (Early Childhood 2 hrs), with breaks and transition time built in.
- Each trip includes multiple S.T.E.A.M. elements that align with Georgia Standards of Excellence and South Carolina Standards.
- We can accommodate up to 100 participants per trip
*Bring your lunch and enjoy a picnic after your program!
