Coastal Habitats Field Trip Series (1-2)

Field Trip Series: School-based introductory program followed by a field trip with a final wrap-up lesson at your school.

Pre-Visit At-Your-School Program (one hour): A Mass Audubon naturalist will come to your classroom and prepare students for the field trip. The class with recreate a rocky tide pool with seawater, sand, rocks, and a variety of live marine creatures, including hermit crabs, moon snails, and larger crabs. Students will touch and hold animals safely and observe and compare their behaviors up close. This hands-on time will help alleviate fears and build confidence to handle live marine animals in their tide pools on the field trip.

Field Trip (2-3 hours): Take your class on an immersive field trip to Joppa Flats. Students will look between rocks, under seaweed, and in the sand to find hidden beach creatures. They will search for shrimp, sea urchins, and other special creatures in the tide pools, and we will all take time to observe and compare our findings before returning the creatures to their natural habitat.

Post-visit At Your School Program (one-hour): A Mass Audubon naturalist will come to your class to guide reflection and synthesis of the field trip. Students will discuss what surprised them, will hold and compare a variety of minerals found in granite, which forms our beach sand, and will study actual sand samples under microscopes. Finally, the class will conduct a mini ‘;beach clean-up" to see how weather can change an object over time.

Allergy Note: This program features live crustaceans, mollusks, and fish.

Field trips may take place at Joppa Flats Education Center, on Plum Island, or in Ipswich