Natural History

Joppa Flats Education Center vacation programs offer a wide variety of indoor and outdoor activities while we keep minds active and hands busy during school break. Each session offers a different theme, with art activities, experiments, group games, and scheduled family presentations for everyone. It's free-flow learning for the whole family. Come once or make it a multiple-day adventure; drop in for an hour or stay all day for a vacation activity that suits your family schedule.

Joppa Flats Education Center vacation programs offer a wide variety of indoor and outdoor activities while we keep minds active and hands busy during school break. Each session offers a different theme, with art activities, experiments, group games, and scheduled family presentations for everyone. It's free-flow learning for the whole family. Come once or make it a multiple-day adventure; drop in for an hour or stay all day for a vacation activity that suits your family schedule.

This parent/child program is designed for the creative, curious, and active preschooler. Each 90-minute session offers a structured series of activities including original songs, movement, dramatic play, outdoor exploration, and a thematic snack. When it's time to go home, you'll receive coloring pages, song lyrics, vocabulary, a fun fact sheet, and a suggested reading list via e-mail. At this ISL, we'll learn to identify tracks in the snow and about the creatures that leave them behind!

U. S. National Park Rangers will be running hands-on activities about how cast iron was made at Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site in the 17th century for Trails & Sails 2012. The free activities will engage visitors of all ages, as they hear and see the huge waterwheels turn, learn about the people who lived and worked at the iron works, and cast their own metal figurine. Participants in these hand-on activities will get to take their metal figures home with them, and kids can also earn a junior ranger badge.

What creatures live in Salem Harbor? Find out at this Trails & Sails 2012 beach seining demonstration at Waikiki Beach at Winter Island Maritime Park! Salem Sound Coastwatch staff and volunteers will walk a large seining net into the water and then drag it back to shore.  We'll lay it out, gather around to examine the catch and talk about what we find. Seining is used by marine scientists to gather information about species living in a body of water. SSCW staff will answer questions and share information about marine habitats and the ecology of Salem Harbor and Salem Sound.

Junior Ranger Day is part of National Park Week and is geared toward engaging kids to learn history, teach them stewardship and have fun while exploring their nearby National Parks.  On the North Shore, families can visit Salem Maritime National Historic Site or Salem Sound Coastwatch for free fun activities throughout the day!

Joppa Flats Education Center vacation programs offer a wide variety of indoor and outdoor activities while we keep minds active and hands busy during school break. Each session offers a different theme, with art activities, experiments, group games, and scheduled family presentations for everyone. It's free-flow learning for the whole family. Come once or make it a multiple-day adventure; drop in for an hour or stay all day for a vacation activity that suits your family schedule.

Enter the world of geckos — bulging eyes, night vision, sticky toepads, squawking voices, and disposable body parts. Geckos can be found all over the planet in climates ranging form rainforests to mountainsides to desert.  Their knack for adaptation has created a specialized species that have uniques tools to ensure their srvival. Come check out more than 60 exotic geckos are coming to the Museum of Science!

This parent/child program is designed for the creative, curious, and active preschooler. Each 90-minute session offers a structured series of activities including original songs, movement, dramatic play, outdoor exploration, and a thematic snack. When it's time to go home, you'll receive coloring pages, song lyrics, vocabulary, a fun fact sheet, and a suggested reading list via e-mail. At this ISL, we'll learn to identify tracks in the snow and the creatures that leave them behind!

This parent/child program is designed for the creative, curious, and active preschooler. Each 90-minute session offers a structured series of activities including original songs, movement, dramatic play, outdoor exploration, and a thematic snack. When it's time to go home, you'll receive coloring pages, song lyrics, vocabulary, a fun fact sheet, and a suggested reading list via e-mail. At this ISL, we'll learn to identify tracks in the snow and about the creatures that leave them behind!