Educator Program Search
Welcome to our Educator Program Search! 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.
How to navigate our Educator Search Tool:
- When you open this page, you'll see all of the field trips we offer at the RMSC.
- You can select the grade level, program type, subject, and location filters to narrow down your search.
- Click on program titles that interest you to see more details, such as date availability.
Looking for virtual field trip options? Click on the location drop-down menu and select "Virtual" to see all of our virtual programs.
Check out our Virtual Field Trip Options
We know that field trips look a little different this school year, but we've adapted some of our popular programs to a virtual format so your class can still enjoy the fun, educational experiences the RMSC has to offer.
Did you know you can visit the RMSC for free? Teachers may visit RMSC free at any time to preview exhibits for planning purposes, and to explore the learning opportunities available at the RMSC. Free admission applies to each teacher with an ID badge. Additional charges for special exhibits and programs may apply.
AdventureZone
Permanent Exhibition
PreK-12 | Students explore the forces that have shaped Rochester in this exhibit that engages the mind and body.
Discover Our Weather
Permanent Exhibition
PreK-12 | Where do clouds come from? What is a "low pressure" system, and why does it sometimes mean a rainy day? What causes lightning? Experiment with the forces behind our changeable weather. Create a forecast to present on camera in the Weather Studio.
Expedition Earth
Permanent Exhibition
PreK-12 | Travel back into deep time! Discover how earthquakes and volcanoes have helped change the land and seas, resulting in adaptation or extinction.
Green Infrastructure Showcase
Permanent Exhibition
PreK-12 | Green infrastructure is a cost-effective, sustainable approach to reducing stormwater runoff pollution while delivering environmental, social, and economic benefits.
Nano
Permanent Exhibition
PreK-12 | Imagine and discover a world you can't see! Hands-on components present the basics of nanoscience and engineering, introduce some real-world applications, and explore the societal and ethical implications of this new technology.
Under Construction: Building Careers
Permanent Exhibition
PreK-12 | This exhibit showcases the green technology used in the Sustainability Institute Hall (home of the Golisano Institute for Sustainability) building at RIT– from start to finish. It also highlights the careers necessary to complete the project from start to finish.
Flight to Freedom: Rochester’s Underground Railroad
Permanent Exhibition
PreK-12 | Immerse yourselves in re-created environments, first-person accounts, and hands-on experiences of the period leading up to the Civil War. Use primary documents to discover how Rochesterians fought against slavery.
Animal Adaptations
Exhibit Workshop (Docent-Led)
Grades PreK-4 | Beavers, bears and birds, oh my! Structure follows function as students explore the adaptations that abound in the animal kingdom!
RMSC Delivers: Lift It, Launch It, Let it Go: Siege Machine (NEW)
Engineering Design Lab
Grades 2-8 | Experiment with different projectiles, arm lengths, and other variables to build and launch with a siege machine.
Light Up the Martian City: Alternative Energy Challenge
Engineering Design Lab
Grades 2-8 | Develop a system using solar and wind energy to light up a city on a Martian landscape, even when the sun is blocked by dust storms!
Freshwater Around the World
Science on a Sphere
Grades 5-8 | Immerse your students into an engaging experience utilizing 3-D data visualization. Observe the hydrologic cycle in action on our 5 ft. interactive globe.
Predicting Weather
Science on a Sphere
Grades 3-8 | Immerse your students into an engaging experience utilizing 3-D data visualization. Discover the complex interactions and movement of air masses on our 5 ft. interactive globe.
Plates in Motion
Science on a Sphere
Grades 4-8 | Immerse your students into an engaging experience utilizing 3-D data visualization. Examine earthquakes, volcanoes and seafloor structures to evaluate the theory of past plate motions.
Live Science: Liquid Nitrogen—Solids, Liquids & Gases
Demonstration (Live Science)
Grades 2-12 | Our coolest demonstrations, literally! This program explores temperature's effect on solids, liquids and gasses using liquid nitrogen.
Live Science: Electricity Theater
Demonstration (Live Science)
Grades 1-12 | Two six foot tall Tesla Coils throwing 8 foot arcs of plasma (lightning) and the arcs actually play music. Our Faraday Cage can make the day of many in attendance electrifying!
Stormy Science
Inquiry Room Investigation
Grades K-3 | Investigate the connections between weather and water processes on earth.
Magnet Exploration
Inquiry Room Investigation
Grades 2-4 | Learn about magnetic fields and experiment with materials that are magnetic. Explore attraction and repulsion. Make magnets float.
Rocks, Fossils and More
Inquiry Room Investigation
Grades 1-5 | Explore fossils from the RMSC teaching collection. Sort rocks into three groups and learn about the minerals that make up rocks.
Simple Machines & Fantastic Forces
Inquiry Room Investigation
Grades K-4 | Explore simple machines while experimenting with pulley systems and ramps. Learn about friction, gravity and inertia while investigating the forces of motion.
What's the Matter?
Inquiry Room Investigation
Grades Pre-K-2 | Explore the states of matter by comparing and contrasting solids, liquids and gases. Do hands-on experiments about liquid density and chemical reaction. Learn about polymers and make slime to take home.
Frog Adaptations
Inquiry Room Investigation
Grades 3-4 | Discover the ingenious adaptations of live frogs and why they’re important.
Sun, Moon and Stars for Grades K-2
Planetarium Digistar Presentation
Grades K-2 | Observe the Sun’s path through the sky from east to west. After sunset, find key constellations of the season by looking for distinctive features such as Orion’s Belt. Travel to the moon, returning just in time for sunrise.
Solar System Science for Grades 3-8
Planetarium Digistar Presentation
Grades 3-8 | Surrounded by the best images from recent space missions such as the New Horizons Pluto flyby projected at giant scale, students encounter the majesty, mystery and wonder of our solar system.
Self Guided Nature Walk
Self-Guided Cumming Nature Center Experience
PreK - 12 | Embark on a self-guided nature walk at Cumming Nature Center!
Ecological Explorations
Guided Cumming Nature Center Experience
Grades 5-8 | Collect data from field, forest and pond communities to gain insight into communities, succession, food webs, and population dynamics.
Water Monitors
Guided Cumming Nature Center Experience
Grades 5-10 | 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.
Nature Awareness
Guided Cumming Nature Center Experience
PreK-2 | Discover the beauty and complexity of the natural world through activities that engage all the senses.
Field Journal Journey
Guided Cumming Nature Center Experience
Grades 4-12 | Explore the complexity and biodiversity of the natural world through observation and data collection using field journals.
Focus on Native Frogs
Guided Cumming Nature Center Experience
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.
Winter Ecology
Guided Cumming Nature Center Experience
Grades 5-12 | Examine how plants and animals adapt to winter. Hunt for tracks and other evidence of animal activity. Snow science investigations.
Introduction to Natural Communities
Guided Cumming Nature Center Experience
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.
RMSC DELIVERS: Light & Color
Hands-on: At Your School
PreK-1 | Explore how and why we see colors in this fun, interactive show. Experiment with color mixing and learn about the different kinds of primary colors.
RMSC DELIVERS: Bats
Interactive Show/Assembly at Your School
PreK-2 | This fun and interactive program will help your students to understand bats, and the important part they play in our ecosystem.
RMSC DELIVERS: Dinosaurs
Interactive Show/Assembly at Your School
PreK-2 | This very interactive program expands the students’ imagination as they learn about and “create” a fossil. Students become “paleontologists” in a mock “dig”, and then role play as dinosaurs to explore how they move, eat, and defend themselves.
RMSC DELIVERS: Insects
Interactive Show/Assembly at Your School
PreK-2 | This fun, interactive program will get your class buzzing about insects. Students will take on the role of dragonflies, bees, crickets, and other insects, as they learn about insect anatomy, eating habits, and how they communicate.
RMSC DELIVERS: Solids, Liquids and Gases
Interactive Show/Assembly at Your School
Grade K-12 | Your class will thrill at the use of Liquid Nitrogen (-196° C), as they learn how temperature effects energy and changes matter from solid to liquid to gas.
RMSC DELIVERS: Energy
Interactive Show/Assembly at Your School
Grades 1-12 | The question is: “What is energy?” Demonstrators guide students in exploring these different forms of energy, how they connect, and how they are used.
Forest School Homeschool CNC Courses
Homeschool Program
Animal Defenses
Guided Cumming Nature Center Experience
Grades 1-4 | This adventure explores the unique defense mechanisms that our local animals use to protect and defend themselves.
Earthskills
Guided Cumming Nature Center Experience
PreK-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, woodscraft and more.
Sound Bites
Permanent Exhibition
PreK-12 | Sounds are a part of our everyday lives and help us to make sense of the world around us. Experience how sound comes from vibrations – waves of energy that push tiny molecules against one another in pulses.
Climate and Our Changing Forest
Guided Cumming Nature Center Experience
Grade 5-12 | Explore how a changing climate affects flora and fauna, and collect data valuable to citizen science projects.
I See the Sky for PreK-K
Planetarium Digistar Presentation
PreK-K | Young children learn about day and night, the Sun and moon, bright and faint stars, constellations and meteors.
Rotation and Orbits for Grades 3-8
Planetarium Digistar Presentation
Grades 3-8 | Take a virtual trip from Earth’s surface into the solar system to see vividly how rotation and revolution produce the cyclical sky changes we see.
Holiday Laser for Grades K-8
Planetarium Laser Show
Grades K-8 | A holiday classic returns, with popular songs by Mariah Carey, Elvis Presley, Mahalia Jackson, Andy Williams, Mannheim Steamroller and others, choreographed to dancing laser light effects.
Beaver Ecology
Guided Cumming Nature Center Experience
Grades 3-8 | Discover adaptations, natural and cultural history of beavers.
Light and Waves
Guided Science Museum Experiences
Grades 6-8 | Explore how light waves interact with one another and other objects to affect what we see. Learn about different careers in the field of optics and the types of work they do. The 50 minute experience includes hands-on experiments in both a classroom and in the Illumination exhibition.
SciFiTech
Limited Time Exhibition
Grades K-12 | This interactive exhibit chronicles our progression from science fiction to science fact, and illuminates emerging technologies that are just now showing up on our cultural radar.
Naturalist in the Zoom! Custom Programs
Interactive Show/Assembly at Your School
Grades Pre-K-12 | What are your students curious about in the natural world? What seasonal events, animal activities, bug perplexities, strange phenomena or wild finds might stump the Naturalist?
What Tells Us That There Was a Big Bang?
Virtual Lesson
Grades 9-12 | Review the three pillars of evidence that our universe is emerging from a Big Bang.
Day and Night On Our Planet
Virtual Lesson
Grades 1-5 | Discover how the Earth and our view of outer space changes throughout the day and night.
Gravity, Scale, and Motion
Virtual Lesson
Grades 6-8 | See how gravity influences the structure and motions of solar systems and galaxies.
How To Predict Eclipses
Virtual Lesson
Grades 9-12 | We review the sun and moon motions needed to produce a solar eclipse. Then we discover how to predict when those conditions will recur.
Virtual Waves - Virtual
Hands-on: At Your School
Grades Pre-K-8 | Explore how and why we see colors.
RMSC DELIVERS: Field Journaling
Interactive Show/Assembly at Your School
Grades 4-9 | Discover the natural history of field journaling and what value a field journal can have for individuals and citizen science.
Ticks Up Close (NEW)
Guided Cumming Nature Center Experience
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.
Lift It, Launch It, Let it Go: Siege Machine - Virtual (NEW)
Engineering Design Lab
Grades 2-8 | Experiment with different projectiles, arm lengths, and other variables to build and launch with a siege machine.
Light Up the Martian City: Alternative Energy Challenge - Virtual
Engineering Design Lab
Grades 2-8 | Develop a system using solar and wind energy to light up a city on a Martian landscape, even when the sun is blocked by dust storms!
Frog Adaptations - Virtual
Inquiry Room Investigation
Grades 3-4 | Discover the ingenious adaptations of live frogs and why they’re important.
Field Journaling - Virtual
Interactive Show/Assembly at Your School
Grades 4-9 | Discover the natural history of field journaling and what value a field journal can have for individuals and citizen science.
Stormy Science - Virtual
Inquiry Room Investigation
Grades K-3 | Investigate the connections between weather and water processes on earth.
Magnet Exploration - Virtual
Inquiry Room Investigation
Grades 2-4 | Learn about magnetic fields and experiment with materials that are magnetic. Explore attraction and repulsion. Make magnets float.
Rocks, Fossils and More - Virtual
Inquiry Room Investigation
Grades 1-5 | Explore fossils from the RMSC teaching collection. Sort rocks into three groups and learn about the minerals that make up rocks.
RMSC DELIVERS: Insects - Virtual
Interactive Show/Assembly at Your School
PreK-2 | This fun, interactive program will get your class buzzing about insects. Students will take on the role of dragonflies, bees, crickets, and other insects, as they learn about insect anatomy, eating habits, and how they communicate.
Climate and Changing Ecosystems - Virtual
Interactive Show/Assembly at Your School
Grades 5-10 | Explore how changing weather patterns over time create climate, and the affects of changing climates on ecosystems past, present, and future.
Ticks! - Virtual
Interactive Show/Assembly at Your School
Grades 3-7 | Ticks are amazingly adapted! Take a microscopic look at local tick species to learn more about them.
Beaver Ecology - Virtual
Interactive Show/Assembly at Your School
Grades 3-7 | Discover adaptations, natural and cultural history of beavers.
Animal Adaptations - Virtual
Exhibit Workshop (Docent-Led)
Grades PreK-4 | Beavers, bears and birds, oh my! Structure follows function as students explore the adaptations that abound in the animal kingdom!