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SCHOOL PROGRAMS
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This two-part program helps students experience and learn about local flora, fauna, and habitats. One week, a staff educator visits a teacher's classroom with activities that complement his/her curriculum and prepares students for their field trip. The next week, students visit Durango Nature Center for a morning-long nature walk that continues the work done in the classroom. Volunteer naturalists and DNS educators guide small groups through a variety of habitats, engaging them with scientific projects, hands-on activities, and stimulating discussions. This program takes place in April/May and September/October.
Our curriculum supports the Durango elementary schools' science objectives
and is correlated to Colorado state science standards. Topics by grade level:
- Preschool-kindergarten - New Program Coming Soon (Spring Only)
- Grade 1 - New Program Coming Soon (Spring Only)
- Grade 2 - Animal Adaptations (Fall Only)
- Grade 3 - Nature's Cycles (Fall Only)
- Grade 4 - Habitat is Where It's At (Fall Only)
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Students in grade 3-8 spend a weekday morning in February on snowshoes learning about wildlife ecology, snow physics, and the scientific experiment. Students learn snowshoeing basics, measure snow characteristics, and realize that many animals survive and even thrive in winter. A week before their winter field trip, a DNS instructor will visit the classroom to provide an interactive program to prepare students for the field. |
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During the school year, a staff naturalist visits preschool - 8th grade classrooms, providing 60 minutes of fun, interactive, hands-on learning on one of the topics listed below. These classroom sessions can be arranged any time we are not doing other programs.
- Mammal Mania
- Winter Wildlife
- The Buzz on Bees
- All About Owls
- Fire: A Forest Friend
The classroom sessions from Children Discovering Nature are also available as stand-alone programs.
Do you need a program taylored to a specific topic? We can work with you to create one classroom presentation or a series of presentations to help you enhance your curriculum. DNS instructors primarily work with the Project Wild and Project Learning Tree curriclum. Contact us to discuss your needs.
Teachers, enhance your classroom curriculum with backpacks from DNS. Each backpack includes lesson plans, activities with materials you will need, books, movies, and more around a specific topic. They are easy for teachers to incorporate into their classroom. Backpacks can be taylored for grades K-5 around one of the topics listed below. Check a backpack out for a week for $30, with a $10 deposit.
- Tracking
- Monarch Migration
- Bug Exploration
- Iditarod Ecology
- Backyard Friends
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To schedule a school program or to learn more, contact
Sally Shuffield, Executive Director,
call 970-769-1800.
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