Cumming Nature Center
Field Trips
Embark on a journey of discovery with your students at the Cumming Nature Center. We offer school programs in every season, exploring topics from climate change to maple sugaring to spring amphibians. Find the program to match your curriculum needs using the search tool below or call us at 585.374.6160 and we’ll help you identify the best program for your class.
GIVE THE GIFT OF LEARNING!
Not all school districts have the resources to bring their students for an immersive experience like a field trip at the RMSC.
Through the generous investments of members and supporters like you, we are able to offer financial assistance to schools with financial needs. Please consider a gift to send a curious mind on a field trip they will never forget!
Educator Programs
Explore school programs using our Program Search below. This tool is designed to help you find the RMSC experience that best fits your needs. As always, we’re here to help. Give us a call at 585.697.1942 and we will answer any questions you have.
Please note: as of September 1, 2022 the RMSC will no longer offer Monday school programs while the Museum & Science Center is closed. Thank you for your patience and understanding!
Animal Defenses
Grades 1-4 | This adventure explores the unique defense mechanisms that our local plants, animals, and other critters use to protect and defend themselves.
Beaver Ecology
Grades 3-7 | Discover adaptations, natural and cultural history of beavers.
Climate and Changing Ecosystems – Virtual
Grades 5-10 | Explore how changing weather patterns over time create climate, and the effects of changing climates on ecosystems past, present, and future.
Climate and Our Changing Forest
Grade 5-12 | Explore how a changing climate affects flora and fauna, and collect data valuable to citizen science projects.
Earthskills
K-5 | Students will discover how to tune in to nature through games and activities involving stealth and observation while practicing survival skills like shelter, fire building, woodcraft, and more.
Ecological Explorations
Grades 5-8 | Collect data from field, forest and pond communities to gain insight into communities, succession, food webs, and population dynamics.
Field Journal Journey
Grades 4-12 | Explore the complexity and biodiversity of the natural world through observation and data collection using field journals.
Field Journaling – Virtual
Grades 4-9 | Discover the natural history of field journaling and what value a field journal can have for individuals and citizen science.
Focus on Native Frogs
Grades 3-5 | This is a fun and dirty adventure that explores the amazing adaptations, lifecycle, and habit of the native frogs in our region.
Introduction to Natural Communities
Grades 2-5 | Explore the woods to discover how all living things are connected through food chains and the relationships between consumers, producers and decomposers.
Maple Sugaring
Grades K-5 | From the Haudenosaunee to the American pioneers, and on to modern day methods, the time-honored tradition of making maple syrup blends both history and ecology.
Nature Awareness
PreK-2 | Discover the beauty and complexity of the natural world through activities that engage all the senses.
Self Guided Nature Walk
PreK – 12 | Embark on a self-guided nature walk at Cumming Nature Center!
Ticks Up Close
Grades 3-8 | Students will use microscopes to observe local tick species, learn how the most common tick species on the East Coast spread Lyme disease, and discuss the many ecosystem and climate factors that control tick populations.
Ticks! – Virtual
Grades 3-7 | Ticks are amazingly adapted! Take a microscopic look at local tick species to learn more about them.
Water Monitors
Grades 5-12 | This field study examines the features of clean water. Students will collect usable data on a Cumming Nature Center creek by collecting benthic macroinverebrates, performing chemical tests, measuring physical characteristics of one of the healthiest creeks in the region.
Winter Ecology
Grades 5-12 | Examine how plants and animals adapt to winter.
Winter Ecology – Virtual
Grades 5-12 | Examine how plants and animals adapt to winter. Hunt for tracks and other evidence of animal activity. Snow science investigations.
