The Discovery Trail is the perfect place for school groups to explore the connections between art, history, literature, science, and the natural world. The following are some examples of educational trips your group may want to take. Please contact Discovery Trail sites directly to schedule a program.

 

• Visit Cornell Plantations to explore the gardens, and then see and make Botanical prints and drawings at the Johnson Museum.
• Listen to bird sounds and watch birds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, then go to Cayuga Nature Center or Cornell Plantations to learn more about the kinds of trees and flowers the appeal to different kinds of birds.
• Scout for birds at Cornell Lab of Ornithology, then learn how birds may have evolved from dinosaurs at the Museum of the Earth.
• Discover the origins of our planet and its life through state-of-the art audio-visual presentations at Museum of the Earth and then discover more about more recent history at The History Center.
• Experience what life was like in three ancient worlds of New York State: Beneath An Ancient Sea, Where Dinosaurs Walked, and A World Carved by Ice at Museum of the Earth and then experience Nature as it exists now at the Cayuga Nature Center.
• Go to the Museum of the Earth to learn how Ithaca became "gorges" and then go to The History Center for "Geography and Early Settlement" to understand how Ithaca's geography influenced settlement patterns and early industry.
• After you visit Cornell Plantations and learn about food crops, come to The History Center, put on your white gloves, and handle some of the original implements used to process them in "Every Object has a Story."
• At The History Center, your class will take a close look at photographs showing the early history of flight in Ithaca and make a model Tommy Scout plane.  Then head over to the Sciencenter to learn about the science of flight in "Air Apparent."