Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (National Lakeshore) has a wide variety of free educational field trips and other program options for students.
Signups are now open for the popular Winter Experience field trip program. Educators can register 3rd-12th graders for this exciting opportunity to visit Sleeping Bear Dunes in the wintertime. Depending on their age level, participants will learn about winter adaptations, climate change, and the connection of parklands to watersheds. If conditions allow, students will don snowshoes during their trips, however, programming will pivot to winterhike versions should there not be enough snow. These field trips are offered from mid-January until early April.
In addition to field trips to the park, educators also have the option to invite rangers over to their school or other venue to facilitate the new “Sharing Star Stories” program. This program uses a state-of-the-art inflatable planetarium dome and laser projector to provide an immersive night sky experience for students. Students will learn to navigate the night sky and explore constellations, including those of the Anishinaabe, the Indigenous peoples of this area.
