Search for School Programs at Broadmoor

Outreach option: Explore your local environment to discover the amazing ways plants and animals use their unique adaptations to thrive—from behaviors to deal with changing seasons to structures for dispersing seeds—and more.
Field trip option: On a field trip to a wildlife sanctuary, explore a combination of field, forest, or wetland habitats to discover the amazing ways plants and animals use their unique adaptations to thrive, such as behaviors to deal with changing seasons, structures to disperse seeds, or body parts to hunt underwater.
This program can focus on animals, plants, or both. Consider adding additional visits to compare different seasons.

Outreach option: Explore evidence of the short-term and long-term changes in the landscape around your school by examining signs of erosion and weathering, and glacial features if present.
Field Trip option: On a field trip to a wildlife sanctuary, explore evidence of the short-term and long-term changes in the landscape by examining signs of erosion and weathering, glacial features, and soil composition.

Learn how our local ecosystems are changing over time and how the ways humans live are impacting our climate. What is the balance between Earth's limited resources and our basic needs? Explore how wildlife sanctuary staff manages the land and positive, climate-friendly changes that can be made in our communities.

Explore patterns of change for the different communities in the temperate biome: fields, forest, and wetlands. Identify how organisms relate with one another (predation, mutualism, competition, dependency, and parasitism) and revisit how organisms are adapted to their environment and how energy moves through trophic levels.

Designed for groups of 12-15 students. Environmental Explorers is a weekly afterschool offering that connects students in grades K-8 to nature wherever they are.

Each week, students dig into a new topic while building science practices and naturalist skills. When possible, lessons will bring students outside and use whatever environment is readily available.

This year-long, project-based afterschool program engages youth in learning about environmental issues affecting their own community and developing solutions that will make an impact.
Students will participate in hands-on, nature-based learning; practice communication, leadership, and teamwork skills; meet adults in environmental careers; and give back to their community.

Choose either a single school-based program or field trip, or combine the two into a series.

In the classroom, explore samples from freshwater ecosystems hands-on and under microscopes, focusing on your choice of biotic and abiotic factors, evolution and adaptation, biotic health indicators, organism identification, or vulnerabilities to climate change.

Take a field trip to a wildlife sanctuary where you'll observe animal and plant life that live in freshwater ponds, streams, marshes, rivers, or vernal pools.

Locations: Your school and/or any Metro West wildlife

Choose either a single school-based program or field trip, or combine the two into a series.

Discover the amazing habitats, plants and wildlife found around your school or in your community. Search for the sources of food, water, shelter, and space that plants and animals need in order to successfully live there.

On a visit to a wildlife sanctuary, investigate field, forest, and wetland habitats to search for the sources of food, water, shelter, and space that plants and animals need in order to successfully live there. Observe similarities and differences in body parts, structures, behaviors, and functions as you learn what it means for wildlife to be adapted to their home.

Outreach option: Explore a natural area in your community or schoolyard as you look for tracks and other signs of native wildlife. Search for food, water, shelter, and space that supports the basic needs of the plants and animals that live here.

Field Trip option: On a visit to a wildlife sanctuary, explore field, forest, and wetland habitats as you look for tracks and other signs of native wildlife. Search for food, water, shelter, and space that support the basic needs of the plants and animals that live there.

Observe biological artifacts for similarities and differences in body parts, structures, behaviors, and functions as you investigate what it means for plants and animals to be adapted to their home. This session is a great pre-visit to combine with the Life in the Water or Habitat Explorations field trips.

Choose either a single school-based program or field trip, or combine the two into a series.

In the classroom or outside at your school, use scientific tools to investigate samples of aquatic life. Look at adaptations to habitat, explore an aquatic food web, or see life cycle stages.

In the field, use dip nets and other tools as you explore the unique life cycles of the organisms that live in the water and depend on wetland and upland habitats to survive. At Broadmoor, this includes a choice of the marsh or vernal pool.

Explore the mysteries of nature through the seasons, from the comfort of your classroom and/or schoolyard habitat. Students will use their senses, compare and contrast, and learn through movement activities and observations. This program can include samples brought to your site (pond life, forest floor specimens, etc.)

Through hands-on learning in the classroom and in the field, students connect with and build an understanding of watersheds as complex ecosystems, learn about climate change and how it impacts a watershed, and develop and implement action plans to mitigate a climate-related problem they identify.

Over a 3-year cycle, teachers participate in professional development, learn to facilitate programs on their own, and eventually serve as mentors for new teachers.

Join Mass Audubon educators as we learn how energy from the sun powers life on Earth, both living processes and the technologies we use to power our communities. Each lesson explores one aspect of the energy cycle within biotic and abiotic systems; including photosynthesis, consumers, decomposers, renewable, and non-renewable energies.

Trees provide much more than shade or pretty additions to city streets and neighborhood parks. This unit explores habitats, adaptations, and life cycles, with trees as a unifying theme. With accessibility to all learners as a priority, lessons highlight the diversity of trees across various Massachusetts habitats, including suburban, urban and rural areas. Nature journaling assignments highlight observation and other science skills and encourage students to choose a tree near their home or school to chronicle throughout the unit.

Are trees the solution to climate change? Through place-based, inquiry driven investigation, students will study the role of trees in the carbon cycle, and expand their investigation to find out whether forest sequestration, or indeed any one nature-based solution, is enough to fight climate change. Finally, students will explore their own role as a changemaker by planning a collective, climate-positive action.

In this unit we will explore different types of "minibeasts", or invertebrates, like worms, pill bugs, and more. Students will engage in outdoor investigations to find out where the best place is for a minibeast to live. Students will document their observations in field journals as they explore different habitats in their schoolyard and use models to explain how these habitats may or may not support the needs of invertebrates. Finally, students will expand their investigation to explore the role invertebrates play to enrich the soil, and understand how humans can learn from them to reduce their footprint and protect their local environment.

In this unit, students will get outside and investigate the ways stronger storms impact their communities, specifically through rain and snow. They will identify places of vulnerability and places of resilience in their schoolyard or neighborhood. As a culminating project, they will design solutions to help reduce the impacts of stronger storms in their area and communicate it with members of their community.

Through science practices and pedagogy specific to outdoor education and methodology based on the Lawrence Hall of Science BEETLES professional learning sessions, participants will build their confidence in instructing outdoors and practice skills they can use with students. Program areas can include observation skills; questioning and discussion strategies; the nature and practice of science, evidence, and explanation; and best practice in teaching and learning, field journaling, and student activities.

Through science practices and pedagogy specific to outdoor education and methodology based on the Lawrence Hall of Science BEETLES professional learning sessions, participants will build their confidence in instructing outdoors and practice skills they can use with students. Program areas can include observation skills; questioning and discussion strategies; the nature and practice of science, evidence, and explanation; and best practice in teaching and learning, field journaling, and student activities.

Through science practices and pedagogy specific to outdoor education and methodology based on the Lawrence Hall of Science BEETLES professional learning sessions, participants will build their confidence in instructing outdoors and practice skills they can use with students. Program areas can include observation skills; questioning and discussion strategies; the nature and practice of science, evidence, and explanation; and best practice in teaching and learning, field journaling, and student activities.

Dig into a classroom soil-lab with samples brought by our staff, analyzing the composition and properties to understand soil's function in local ecosystems and determine its health. Learn how healthy soil can support a resilient climate.

On a trip to a wildlife sanctuary, compare soil from field, forest, and wetland habitats, analyzing the composition and properties to understand its function in local ecosystems and determine its health. Learn how healthy soil can support resilient climate.

Manipulate different substrates with water and moving air to investigate the effects of wind and water, then work in teams to create and test solutions to prevent erosion.

This program requires we are able to set up in one location with classes coming to us due to the amount of supplies that students can manipulate and our need to reset materials between groups.

Choose either a single school-based program or field trip, or combine the two into a series.

Use scientific tools to investigate samples of aquatic life in a classroom wet-lab. Add a live wildlife visit to complete your exploration of wetland energy flow or adaptations. In the schoolyard or your community, use dip-nets and other tools as you explore the unique life cycles of the organisms that live in a water body in your community.

On a Field Trip, use dip-nets and other scientific tools to explore wetland animals and their unique adaptations for living in water. Learn to identify specific organisms and understand the special characteristics of different water bodies and ecosystems. At Broadmoor, available wetlands include the marsh, vernal pool, streams, and the Charles River.