Visit the first National Estuarine Research Reserve with your students. Discover an estuary, where the river meets the sea. Engage your students with the natural world while exploring a watershed, salt marsh, tideflat and water channel. Allow your students to hike, dig, collect, observe and inquire. Involve students in science, and build scientific literacy.
Field trips and educational programs
- Description
Discover what lies below the surface of the estuary from the platform of the docks. Water quality sampling, plankton tow, organism sampling.
- Grades
- 4-12
- Length
- 1 hour
- Offered
- Wednesdays through Fridays, March-May and September-October
- Document
- Prepare for a Field Trip
- Registration
- Schedule a Field Trip
- Description
Learn about the threat of invasive species to our coastal habitats by participating in an invasive species pull with South Slough staff.
- Grades
- 5-12
- Length
- 2-4 hours
- Offered
- Wednesdays and Thursdays, September–May
- Document
- Prepare for a Field Trip
- Registration
- Schedule a Field Trip
- Description
Discover what lies beneath the mud. Students will dig, collect and observe organisms living between the tides.
- Grades
- 3-12
- Length
- 2–3 hours
- Offered
- Wednesdays and Thursdays, April & May
- Document
- Prepare for a Field Trip
- Registration
- Schedule a Field Trip
Treasures of South Slough Reserve
- Description
Begin when the treasure chest arrives in your classroom. The chest holds lesson plans, activities and accompanying learning tools to involve students over the course of a week. When students arrive at South Slough for the field trip, they will hike to the shoreline of the estuary and embark on an adventure along the “treasure trails.” Clues will guide students and by the end of the day, they will have learned enough to find the treasure.
- Grades
- 4 & 5
- Length
- 4-5 hours
- Offered
- Wednesdays and Thursdays, September–October
- Document
- Prepare for a Field Trip
- Registration
- Schedule a Field Trip
Watershed to Estuary Hike
- Description
Begin at the head of the freshwater and follow the creek to the estuary. Discover plants and animals along the way and discover where the fresh becomes salt. Journal?
- Grades
- Pre-K - 12
- Length
- 3-4 hours
- Offered
- Tuesday-Friday, March–May and September–October
- Document
- Prepare for a Field Trip
- Registration
- Schedule a Field Trip
Click on one of the above links to select a field trip. For more information please
contact:
Invite an educator to your classroom
Pre-K – 12 classroom or school yard lessons and activities lead or modeled by a South Slough educator.
South Slough would like to help extend student learning beyond their field experience in the estuary. Pre- and post- activities will connect field trips to the classroom, and help students recognize patterns, concepts and ideas.
For those who cannot make it out to South Slough with their students, the reserve also offers engaging lessons about estuary ecosystems and the research being conducted at the South Slough Reserve and other reserves around the country.
Click here to invite an educator.
For more information on inviting an educator to your classroom please contact:
Jaime Belanger
Education Coordinator
Phone: 541-888-5558 Ext. 127
Jaime.C.Belanger@state.or.us
Partners in estuary education