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Our Field Trips

Explore Our Field Trips

Immersive Experiences for
Every Student

Inspire your class when they engage with nature – and extend their excitement to their community and beyond. We collaborate with school districts to provide NGSS-aligned, hands-on opportunities to apply science practices, both to our watershed and the student’s community. During our activities, your students learn concepts that connect relationships in nature to the critical balance on Earth – and humanity’s role. As a result, students are empowered to care for the environment via their own communities.

Our dynamic field trips do more than simply bring your class into nature: They ignite curiosity and appreciation about the environment nearby and around the world.

Sign up for impactful field trips in San Diego!

How Our Programs Work

Every Nature Collective field trip starts with classroom lessons at school. This way, students come to our trips ready to explore and learn! Once a class starts their 2–5 hour field trip, students divvy up into groups of 10–12. The small group size allows our trained educators to give students the opportunity to have an extra-impactful experience.

After the field trip is complete, students employ design thinking to address natural resources utilization – and how this affects the environment.

Available Field Trips

grades 3

Exploring Habitats

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  • Location: Nature Center (accessible restrooms available). More info

    Time: 2 hours

  • Cost: $10 per student, scholarships available for Title 1 schools

Explore the San Elijo Lagoon’s plants + animals – and the habitats they depend on – via sight, smell, touch, and sound! To survive, every living thing needs a habitat (aka home) providing shelter, air, food, and water. Special attention is given to the California horned snail and its ability to live on mudflats.

grades 3

Life Cycles

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  • Location: Nature Center (accessible restrooms available). More Info

    Time: 2 hours

  • Cost: $10 per student, scholarships available for Title 1 schools

Discover how the life cycles of living organisms are different – and strikingly similar. Although birth, growth, reproduction, and death are common stages among plants and animals, each stage can be very unique to a particular species. We’ll make observations, identify patterns, and compare life cycles found in the lagoon.

grades 4

Adaptations

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  • Location: Nature Center (accessible restrooms available). More Info

    Time: 2 hours

  • Cost: $10 per student, scholarships available for Title 1 schools

Uncover the secrets to so many organisms sharing an ecosystem. Whether the lagoon’s flora and fauna reside in the salt marsh, freshwater riparian woodland, or dry coastal sage scrub, amazing physical and behavioral adaptations create harmony in the natural community.

grades 4

Land Formations

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  • Location: Rios Ave (no restrooms). More Info

    Time: 2.5 hours

  • Cost: $12 per student, scholarships available for Title 1 schools

Use your observation skills to reveal geological mysteries! You can discover which forces are responsible for land constantly changing. As your class walks through Annie’s Canyon Trail, they see how a variety of living – and nonliving – forces sculpt land in different ways. A hike up the slot canyon to the top isn’t just exciting; the trek offers a fresh perspective on how natural forces create new land formations.

grades 5

Food Chains + Webs (All-Day Trip)

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  • Location: Nature Center (universally accessible restrooms available) or Rios Ave (no restrooms). More Info

    Time: 5 hours

  • Cost: $18 per student, scholarships available for Title 1 schools

How do organisms interact within their ecosystems? Explore how living things depend on one another for survival. Examine the different components of an ecosystem – both the living and the nonliving – with a special focus on decomposers and the movement of matter.

grade 6 – 8

Watershed Biodiversity

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  • Location: Various spots within the Escondido Creek watershed.

    Time: 5 hours

  • Cost: $18 per student, scholarships available for Title 1 schools

Visit one of four distinct habitats in the Escondido Creek watershed. Students learn about the area’s incredible biodiversity. Throughout the day, your class engages in conservation activities, tests water quality, understands nature’s benefits better, and explores how humans impact our lands, air, and water.

grade 9-12

Preserving + Restoring Nature (AP Classes)

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  • Location: Varies

    Time: 2 hours

  • Cost: $10 per student, scholarships available for Title 1 schools

Designed for Advanced Placement Environmental Science classes, our customizable high-school program offers a hands-on experience. Popular topics include wetland ecosystem, biodiversity, and the impacts of invasive species on ecosystem health. Activities range from habitat restoration and plant transects, to identification of unique plants and animals in the San Elijo Lagoon.