Home School Classes

Eco Adventures

Homeschool Classes Fall 2023

Tuesday and Wednesday Nature Nuts Series   

Nature Nuts  (ages 5-14)

Tuesday Sept 12th-Nov 7th

Wed:  Sept 13-Nov 8th * No Class Nov 1st         

10am-11am 

$175 for 8 week session (includes registration fee)

Welcome back  ECO Explorers!  Pack your suitcases as In this first session, we will travel all over the world to learn about each unique biome, learn the history and culture of those parts of the world and meet the animals who call them home. Voyagers will make their own Eco-passports as they travel from continent to continent each week!

Register online - Spaces available!!

We customize to your needs. If you have a group of 6-14 students, we can form your own one-time class or session. Please inquire at ecoadventuresmd@gmail.com

Registration NOW OPEN CLICK HERE

Session 1 Themes (8 weeks)

animal art

Week 1: Rocking Rainforest: Amazon Rainforest!

We’re heading south as we embark on a journey into the AMAZON RAIN FOREST!   Your safari guide will help you use all your senses, from smell to sounds and sights of the mysterious endangered habitat!   Did you know that 50% of all biodiversity comes from the rainforest among medicines, spices and fruits and so much more! Join us in a quest to learn about the importance of saving our rainforests and why the wet and dry seasons are so important to this habitat.  Meet an animal from each layer of the rainforest and learn a fun and interactive game to remember the layers! 

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Eco Adventures

Week 2: Super Savanna: Botswana Okavango Delta

Put on your safari hats, it’s time to go on a safari. The home of giant grazers, learn what it means to navigate a landscape dominated by grass. How do animals survive with nowhere to hide? Where do animals travel during the dry season?  Students will meet animals that are experts on hiding! Discover the keys to camouflage, dissect the parts of grass, learn about food web, and follow the rains for the true savannah experience.

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mountain

Week 3: Magnificent Mountains: From the Rockies to Mt. Everest!

This week it's time to climb into this most extreme of environments where the snow peaks above the clouds and oxygen is low! Mountains, have majestic peaks and ranges that shape our world and weather,  corral the clouds and carve out cliffs.  Students will learn about how alpine creatures survive, learn about how cultures respect the mountains, their tales of mystical creatures, and build a rain shadow of their own.  

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desert

Week 4: Dazzling Desert: Sonora!

What secrets can you find buried beneath the sand? What adaptations are needed to survive in a land with little food and less water. Meet the exceptional survivalists who call this brutal biome home, such as the Gila Monster, learn how plants survive with little water, meet scorpions that glow in the dark and sift through sand in search of clues to the desert’s Native American history. 

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Ocean

Week 5: Under The Sea: Australia -The Great Barrier Reef

Over two-thirds of Earth is covered by oceans, yet over 90% of the animals there are yet unknown. Coral Reefs are among the most endangered habitats today!  Dive into the blue sea with us as we create a clay and colorful coral reef of our own, learn about amazing invertebrates that make up this habitat in a lab as we travel across earth’s biggest biome and come up with ways to help save the coral reefs!

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shark

Week 6: Under the Sea II: Reefs and Sharks

Good day ‘Mate!  We continue creating our Coral Reef and learn about some big predators like Great White sharks, box jellies, and Salties (crocs) that inhabit the salty waters in a shark lab.  

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Eco Adventures

Week 7: Transforming Tundra

One thing is always changing into another, and nowhere is that more true than in our transforming tundras. All the way at the ends of the earth is our last biome, a habitat shaped by ice and snow. What do animals need to stay warm in the frigid winters, who hibernates, changes fur color with seasons, and what happens to the light when summer does come? Meet frozen friends who call this habitat home, but be careful they just might melt your heart. Students will learn about seasons and transformations in nature while investigating this remote biome. 

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Mardi Gras

Week 8: Stellar swamps:  New Orleans the Bayou! Halloween-! Wear costumes! 

Go to the Bayou where spanish moss flows like rain from the trees…This mysterious habitat is home to many creatures such as snakes, snapping turtles, and gators, oh my! Pull up your waders, spray on that bug spray, and push aside the moss, to discover the magic of this muddy, wetland. Learn how to disappear like an alligator and go with the flow of the water. Students will learn about the importance of wetlands as we discover how ecosystems are connected and meet gators, snappers and snakes…oh my! 

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Wizarding World School of Arts and Science

Eco Adventures

Ages 6+

Thurs: Sept 14th-Nov 2nd     10-11am    

$175 for 8 week session

(includes registration fee)

Wizarding School of ARTS AND SCIENCES

Calling all first-years wizards, and muggles!! Eco’s School of Wizarding is SUPER excited to announce a 8-week class full of science: physics, chemistry, biology history, and arts. Wizards in training will be sorted with our talking sorting hat into working groups or houses. Classes consist of Introduction/make your own wand, care of magical creatures, herbology, potions, creations, dueling and more! Where else can you combine the magic of Harry Potter books and real-life science experiments, art projects, history lessons, and animal interactions with your favorite creatures? We encourage creativity, fun, and imagination while providing real science and arts topics. Each class, you will meet some favorite creatures like "Scabbers the rat to Nagini the snake, train a dragon, meet alligators, tarantulas, and more. And of course, along with all that learning we celebrate in the last class in the Great Hall with some magical snacks, like butterbeer, Bertie Botts every flavor beans including ear wax and snot!

Students are welcomed to wear their cloaks and bring their wands.

 

Week 1: Care of Magical Creatures

  • Welcome to the wonderful world of magic! For our first class meet all the magical creatures who call eco home, and help us care for them! Students will also make their own wands and help train a dragon. 

Week 2: Stupefy: Freezing with Friction

  • Have you ever wanted to stop a rolling boulder in its tracks? How about how to climb walls? For this class try a spell that can do all that and more. Learn about and test different types of friction to stop almost anything and meet incredible animals who use this same force in new and unorthodox ways.

Week 3: Protego: Bouncing Back with Energy

  • I’m rubber and you’re glue. The most famous protection spell to bounce back at your opponent, but how does it work? In this week’s Wizarding class, it's time to explore energy. Discover how to store and transform this elusive magic that cannot be destroyed. Test different ways to send it springing back and meet some of the best experts at storing and using energy …our reptiles. 

Week 4: Aguamenti: Making water stick

  • Water flows downhill, but what else can it do? In this week's charms class use “Aguamenti” to move and hold water in some brand new ways. Can you stick it to a coin? Flip it upside down? How big a hemisphere can you make? While we’re at it, why not meet some animals who rely on these weird and wonderful properties our water possesses!

Week 5: Invisibility Cloaks and Camouflage

  • There is only one true invisibility cloak, but that doesn't stop wizards or animals from doing their best to disappear. Meet experts at blending into the background and put your own eyes to the test as you try to spot them. Then design and test your own invisibility designs. Color? Pattern? Texture? Learn how all these factors combine to make you truly disappear in an engaging art creation.

Week 6: Divination and Animal Senses

  • We wizards must use divination if we wish to peer into the future, but even without magic many animals can predict disasters before they happen. Dive into the expansive world of animal senses. What can they see, hear, smell, and feel that we can’t? How do birds know when hurricanes are coming?  Or animals with earthquakes? How do dog sense when their owner will have epileptic seizure? Or even detect cancer? How do they do it? Discover all this and more, with sense experiments, while building your own device to sense vibrations, and maybe make some predictions of your own.

Week 7: Magical Serpents

  • Basilisks, wyms, sea serpents, and hydras. Throughout time, few animals have inspired as many stories of myths and magic as our friends the snakes. Its care and keeping of animal creatures this week and we’re going to discover the truth behind the myths. Discover what abilities they truly have and make your own magical floating snake. 

Week 8: Herbology

  • Potions would be near impossible without the plants we use to brew them. For this week's class, it’s all about Herbology. How do these incredibly important plants grow, and where do they get their energy? What are some poisonous plants, how do they defend themselves against herbivores? Discover what magic lives in the dirt beneath your feet and meet some of the little critters and herbivores who help make all life possible.
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In-Depth Keeper Apprentice Program

Eco Adventures

Email to Schedule M-F

10am-12:30pm
Ages 7+
$70 per class

*Max number 5 students

Wonder what it is like to be a zookeeper? Who hasn’t, right? This highly personal program is led by one of our credentialed animal keepers, to pull back the curtain on all involved in animal husbandry. This in-depth experience is for the older students who are serious about learning animal husbandry and medical care of animals. Students will tour the facility and learn specific information and needs of our special animal collection. Students will get to not only encounter animals in our behind-the-scenes animal room, but assist with animal care, food prep, training, & cleaning. This is a very hands-on experience like no other, with interactions with numerous endangered species! Whoever gets to interact with an endangered species in this day and age? YOU DO, in this extremely elite camp, the ultimate insider experience. **Space is very limited, with only one to three select participants per day!! Perfect for aspiring Jr. Assistants.

EMAIL TO REGISTER: ecoadventuresmd@gmail.com

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Jr. ZooKeeper Class

Eco Adventures

Ages 7+

Tues, Sept 12-Oct 31st 11-Noon

Wed, Sept 13th-Nov 8th *No Class Nov 1st

$180 For 8 Week Session

(includes registration fee)

Learn what it is like to take care of over 80 of ECO's animals. Assist with animal care chores and learn about husbandry and the welfare of animals. Help make diets and feed and train animals. What do they eat, what do they need to survive and thrive? What happens if they get sick? What do I need to do to be a keeper in the future? What makes a good pet...and what does not. These are all questions we will answer in this in -depth class all about ANIMALS!!

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Registration NOW open click here

Mini Explorer's Classes

Eco Adventures

Tuesday & Thursday 9:30am-noon 

Ages 3-6

8 week session

Tuesday 9/19-11/14 or Thursday 9/21-11/16

$40 per day or $30 per day Full Session
   

DROP OFF ONLY

* Need min of 4 kids to run 

**If interested please email ecoadventuresmd@gmail.com**

(Must be potty trained)

*Class can be outdoor/indoor in small groups. 

Discover! Create! Explore! Use all your senses in this class to learn about the wonderful world of nature, art, and science! Classes may consist of a storybook, meet and interact with animals, and a hands-on activity such as a game/craft/music/experiment/fossil dig/nature scavenger hunt. Each week is a different theme. * Must have a min number for the class to run.

Themes (not necessarily in this order)

All Aboard the Animal Train…..Get your tickets NOW, and head to the Eco Adventures station.  The conductor is waiting for you to climb aboard our animal train. We’re traveling the globe and meeting some amazing animals along the way.  Visit Australia, matey.  Go on an African safari.  Asia awaits.   Make a craft to take home and play around the world games….All aboard.  You don’t want to miss this train!!

Shiver Me’ Timbers… Ahoy mateys!  I hear there is hidden treasure at Eco Adventures.  All we need is a crew, a map and animals to help us solve the clues.  Pirate Blackbeard has plundered our loot and we need to get it back.  Maybe we can ask the talking parrotHarley if she saw him do it.  One way or another, our crew will set sail on adventure and find the hidden “x” marks the spot.   Shiver Me’ Timbers it’s going to be a GOOD TIME on the high seas!

Myths, Fables and Fairy Tails… Let’s step into stories of long ago and learn about the animals that are so popular in legends, myths and fairy “tails”.   Why are animals so popular in stories throughout time?  Learn about the legends and myths of mermaids,  unicorns, Fairies, Trolls,  and more.  Go on a scavenger hunt to find our fairies in Pixie Hollow and find their home!   “Once Upon Time” is about to come to life at Eco Adventures.

Hide and Go Seek…Sounds like a simple game of hide and go seek, but trust us, finding a hiding animal is not so easy.  This is because many animals have to ability to CAMOUFLAGE.  Finding them is very hard to do.  But that won’t stop us.  We will search high and low and see what we can find.  Come join us as we play hide and go seek with the animals.  READY OR NOT, HERE WE COME!

Backyard Boogie - What's that lurking in your backyard? Does it JUMP, LEAP, SLITHER or CREEP? Learn about our local wildlife and why they find your backyard a prime spot to settle down. Under that rock, in a pond, hidden in the leaves, these animals are masters at hiding but now that we know where they are, we WILL find them!

Dino Dig Calling all paleontologists.. it's time to DIG deep and unearth ancient fossils! We've heard that giant dinosaurs once roamed the woods right outside Eco Adventures. There's only one way to be sure!! We'll get to the bottom of this, with a real life fossil dig. Stegosaurus, Pterodactyl, T-Rex.. OH MY...let's get dirty and give it a TRY!

Gold Rush

We’re heading to the wild, wild West.. to strike it rich! Grab your grub and pack up the mules.. we’ll be panning for gold, gems, and fossils. Get wet at the sluice. Find out what kinds of animals the miners encountered. Trade your gold for merchandise at the good ol’ EcoAdventure Trading Post. It’s going to be a hoot, hollerin’ good time folks!

Colorful Creatures

Leaves are changing colors and so are some animals!....Learn and SEE how colors are important to our world!  From Camouflage to warning predators “I am dangerous”,  create colorful art masterpieces, meet colorful animals,  and play the color flashing game.

Story book comes to life!

Read a story about a hedgehog and watch it come to life! Play and feed with some cute and cuddlies...Then make some cute prickly crafts!

Nature's Rhythm 

Listen to the sounds of the rainforests then make music of your own!  Meet animals that croak, growl, hiss, and screech!  Use some of our native instruments and create a rainstick to take home. 

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Eco-Explorers Field Class

Eco Adventures

 

Wednesdays: Sept 13th-Oct 18th  (ages 7+)

10am-noon (Meet at location)

$185 for a 6 week session (includes reg fee)  

*Bring water bottle, snack, apply sunscreen and bug repellent.

*Rain or Shine

*Need a min 5 participants to run

Meet at:

Location 1: Patapsco State Park Visitor Center

  • Nature Survivors

This week it is all about survival. Air, water, shelter, food. How do animals find it all? How can we find it? Join us at Patapsco to learn how to build shelters, purify water, and navigate with a compass. Discover what is most important and what it is we just can’t live without

  • Neighborhood Naturalists
    • There’s so much nature all around us. How can we develop a deeper understanding and appreciation for it? Go on a scavenger hunt. Make a nature journal and observe, learn, and CONNECT with nature!

 

Location 2: Kinder Farm

  • Farming and animals
      • Join us at Kinderfarm Park as we meet sweet farm animals and learn about how people have cared for them for 300 years. Visit historic buildings and explore with us in a place both wild and domestic animals call home.
      • (Ask Jessica if she still has her llama)
  • Turtle-tacular
    • This camp is for serious turtle lovers! Help naturalists find Painted turtles,  Snapping turtles, Mud turtles, and maybe even Box turtles while netting the water to see what other animals share their habitats.  Learn about threats to all turtles, and the aquatic ecosystems they call home. 

Location 3: Sandy point

  •  Day at the Bay
    • Meet at Sandy Point State Park where students will participate in activities including hiking through the forest in a scavenger hunt to find toads, insects, lizards, and more.  Then do a trash pick up to the beach and sein for Bay creatures such as minnows, crabs, rockfish, shrimp, and even pipefish!

Location 4: Patuxent Wildlife Refuge

  • Wild plants
      • Buckle up botanists, it's time to explore the wonderful world of plants! In our expedition, we will venture through meadows and into the forests in search of useful wild plants. From helpful medicines to tasty treats, there is so much to discover from plants and flowers. Learn what animals need them to survive such as monarchs, bees and more!
  • Nature Scavenger hunt
    • Join Detective Squirrel-lock Holmes on a hike through the woods but not just an ordinary hike! There is a mystery afoot! What animals live here? What signs do they leave behind? Put on your detective hats and be ready for a scavenger hunt as we solve the mysteries of their secret lives.
  • More information when you register
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Investi-Gators Class

Eco Adventures

Thursday: Sept 21th-Nov 16th  (ages 12+)

10am-11am

$195 for a 9 week session (includes reg fee)  

*Bring water bottle

*Need a min 5 participants to run

Is your student curious about the world around them? Or interested in pursuing a career in science? These classes will focus on more in-depth science topics including cooperative, project-focused activities that will develop key skills in the scientific method, and experimental design, and build effective communication while providing students with hands-on learning.  Of course, hands-on learning will include interacting with our live animals as well as going outdoors in the field. Students will design their own ecological experiment throughout the course session and collect data in the field. Additionally, each class will cover different topics in biology while students meet relevant animals from various habitats. Students will collaborate with each other, learn presentation skills as they will finish the class with presenting the results of their research to each other. What other way to learn and have fun than by involvement

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Eco Adventures
Eco Adventures
Eco Adventures

Eco Adventures and the Home School Community:

"My 10 year old son and I attended the open house before the grand opening of Eco Adventures in Millersville a year ago. I knew right away that this was a place I wanted my son to attend and I knew it would be wonderful for our family and for the home school community. The staff was willing to work with me and set up a home school class and from the very first adventure we were hooked! 

Each class includes hands on animal experiences and this is the only place I have ever been that always seems to say yes in some fashion to the children — Yes, you can touch this way. Yes, we can do that. Yes, we can bring an animal out to look at and learn about. The atmosphere is relaxed and the children are always engaged and excited to learn. They cover so many topics and always in a way that is fascinating. My son enjoyed the program so much that he started working towards the Junior Assistant program and just this July, after 9 months of preparing, he passed the interview and reached his goal. This will be an excellent addition to his home school transcript and we hope to have a working/school relationship with Eco Adventures for many years to come."

*Please help us spread the word and share with your home school groups. You can get $10 off for a NEW participant registration (max of $30 discount) if they mention your name (You must be an existing customer to receive the discount)

Home School Policies

  • Special Needs – We welcome special needs students to learn and thrive in our hands on learning style at Eco Adventures. In order to maintain the quality of our programs and for your children's and animals' safety, we require that special needs students have adult supervision to assist. Failure to do so, may result in cancellation of registration .
  • COVID UPDATE: Masks optional.
  • Please do not bring any toys/ or use of electronics is prohibited
  • Absences: Please notify us when you child will be absent
  • Whenever possible, students will be given different activities/challenges according to their age.
  • Vacation & Sick Policy: You may make up to 1 days of missed home school class anytime during the same session. You must give advance notice to make up class & it will be dependent on availability. If that does not work out you may get one pass to a Jungle Express. No refunds or credits.
  • Snow/Inclement Weather Policy: We will try our best to reschedule for "snow days", or you can make them up on the other day. but if not possible we will give a Jungle Express pass.
  • Discounts: 10% sibling discount or 5% military discount with ID (can only use one discount per child)
  • Must have a minimum number of students to run the class.
  • Please note that some of our animals may eat peanuts and other varieties of nuts.
  • Request a certificate at the end of the class if needed. Daily Class outlines will be emailed after each class (except prek)