Field Trips at Lynden

Ideal for schools, CLCs, home schoolers and other groups of up to 35, a field trip includes admission to the sculpture garden, a mini-tour or other outdoor activity, and hands-on art-making in our studio or outdoor learning center. Field trips can be adapted for ages 3 through 18.

Our year-round field trips combine outdoor exploration and hands-on activities, and address state standards in art and science, national core arts standards, common core standards in speaking and listening, and DPI performance standards for environmental education.

All of Lynden's field trips at the intersection of art and nature are designed to integrate our collection of monumental outdoor sculpture and temporary installations with the natural ecology of park, pond, and woodland. Led by artists, naturalists, and art educators, these programs explore the intersection of art and nature through collaborative discovery and hands-on artmaking, using all of Lynden's 40 acres as well as its art studio to create a joyful experience. Field trips are generally two hours (60-90 minutes for the very young). Resources for use in the classroom before and after the trips are available.

One of the great benefits of visiting Lynden is to spend time outdoors in a place where art and nature create a unique environment. When planning your field trip, consider how long your students may need to settle into a large outdoor place, and how much time you would like to devote to student-guided exploration while at Lynden. Weather permitting, groups are welcome to spend additional time outdoors exploring the garden or enjoying lunch in our picnic area. Be sure to dress appropriately for the weather; students will spend time outdoors during all field trips.

Questions
If you have questions or are interested in virtual classroom visits, residencies, or other customized programs, please contact Jeremy Stepien at jstepien@lyndensculpturegarden.org or 414-446-8481.

General Information

Group Size and Chaperones

Field Trips at Lynden are designed for groups up to 35. If you have a larger group, please contact us. One adult chaperone per 10 students is required.

Availability

Field Trips at Lynden are offered year-round on weekdays, subject to staff availability.

Fees

$8 per child (there is a $120 minimum for groups under 15). This includes admission and all other materials. Adult chaperones are admitted free.

Field trip activities are conducted in light rain. However, the presence of lightning will result in immediate cancellation. If your trip is cancelled due to weather conditions, you may reschedule or receive a full refund

Field trip subsidies and assistance with the cost of transportation are available for field trips; awards are based on need. Please contact Jeremy Stepien, Director of Education, at jstepien@lyndensculpturegarden.org or 414-446-8481.

Registration

To register for a Field Trip at Lynden, click here.

Questions?
Contact Jeremy Stepien, Director of Education, at jstepien@lyndensculpturegarden.org or 414-446-8481.

Available Field Trips

Garden Animals
Ages 3-7
Available during the school year
What animals live at Lynden and where can we find them? We will seek out evidence of local animals exploring their habitats and searching for animal tracks. We will gather inspiration from our collection of animal sculptures to create artworks based on our observations and our own favorite garden animals.

Discovering Trees at Lynden
Ages 3-7
Available during the school year
Examine the tree’s lifecycle and the seasons using sensory explorations, read-alouds, art making, and artful thinking. Cultivate an understanding of trees, foster inquiry into the natural world, and encourage care for the environment.

Nature's Kitchen
Ages 3-7
Available summer and fall
Where does food come from? What does it taste, smell, and feel like? This field trip is an invitation to explore sensory materials, role play, and work as teams. Children will engage in collecting different herbs, flowers, and seeds from the garden to “cook” in the mud kitchen. Mix, measure, bake, pour, sprinkle to prepare and serve mud pies, stone soups, and flower salads in the playscape’s “kitchen.”

Pond Wonders
Ages 3-7
Available summer and fall
Ponds provide homes for plants and animals. Frogs, turtles, birds, insects, and plants provide a symphony of sounds, textures, and smells. We will get our hands wet exploring the pond as an ecosystem or community of organisms that interact with one another and with their environment. This field trip uses hands-on pond explorations, a pond scavenger hunt, art making, and a read-aloud to cultivate an understanding of this fascinating habitat.

Animals, Symbols & Sculpture
K4-6th Grade
Available during the school year
A guided mini-tour explores relationships between sculpture and the inhabitants that call Lynden their home. Explore several of Lynden’s own animal sculptures with interactive talking and making activities along the way. This field trip is especially suited for younger grades.

Sculpture Construction Techniques: Assemblage
1st-12th Grade
Available during the school year
Mark di Suvero made Poland by assembling scrap metal pieces. Examine construction methods up-close on a mini-tour of works in the Lynden collection, then head to the studio to try your hand at transforming industrial pieces into an organic sculptural form using reclaimed wood, mechanical parts (nuts, bolts, etc.) and stove pipe wire.

Organic Forms
1st – 12th Grade
Available during the school year
In the garden, we consider how plant structures evolve to ensure survival and we look at how artists draw inspiration from nature. We’ll use drawing as a method of slow observation of collected plants, then we’ll use these drawings to create organic form sculptures in clay.

Making Spaces into Places: Site Specific Sculpture
Available year-round
1st – 12th Grade
Several contemporary artists have used Lynden as a laboratory to create site-specific sculpture, sculpture that is created to exist in a particular place. We will take a close look at how location and the resources of the garden become part of the process of planning and making site-specific sculpture, then create our own site-specific sculpture using natural materials collected onsite.

Eliza’s Peculiar Cabinet of Curiosities: Collection
Available during the school year
4th – 12th Grade
This field trip looks at Folayemi Wilson’s site-specific art installation Eliza’s Peculiar Cabinet of Curiosities. The full-scale structure is both a cabinet of curiosities and slave cabin; it imagines what Eliza, a fictitious 19th-century woman of African descent might have collected and catalogued in her living quarters. What did Eliza find curious about the objects and culture of her captors? Southern plantation life? The natural world around her? Informed by historical research, but represented in the past, present, and future simultaneously, Eliza’s Cabinet--animated by an Afro-Futurist vision that embodies a hopeful version of an African American future--presents an imagined collection of found and original objects, furnishings, and artifacts. We also spend time looking at the work of other artists at Lynden who interpret the world through collecting, investigating, and cataloguing. We will practice collecting as an artful way to explore and know more about ourselves and the world around us.


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