A UNIQUE NATURE CAMP PROGRAM

Curiosity is the basis of science - it drives research, exploration, and discovery!  

We’ve designed our program with the goals of awakening curiosity, exploring nature, and creating connections between ideas and between the students themselves. We encourage students to ask questions and help them find their own answers through hands-on exploration - but we don’t just teach science!  Here at the Coastal Institute, we take a whole child approach. We facilitate social learning, we require students to keep their electronic devices at home, we offer traditional camp activities such as archery and campfire, and we integrate team-building into everything that we do.

Our facility sits on 13 acres of Monterey pine forest surrounded by protected land with fantastic views of the Pacific Ocean. This unique location, with access to both the forest and the ocean, has allowed us to develop a comprehensive curriculum and exciting excursions based around fascinating ecosystems. Our lessons are immersive and hands-on, designed around concepts integral to Next Generation Science Standards. During the day, students go kayaking in a local estuary, tide pooling along the coast, or for a hike to an elephant seal rookery. In the evenings, students explore our 100-gallon marine invertebrate touch tank, meet our live great horned owl, or dissect their own squid! 

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PROGRAM GOALS

  • AWAKENING CURIOSITY - We believe that all children are naturally curious but that sometimes, that curiosity is stifled. Here at The Coastal Institute, students will observe, wonder, and ask questions.

  • EXPLORING NATURE - Exploration leads to knowledge. Students will get their hands dirty, turn over rocks at the tide pools, and use their senses to explore the world around them as they seek answers to the questions that they’ve asked.

  • CREATING CONNECTIONS - When students work together to answer their own questions, powerful connections are formed. Students connect what they discover at science camp to the concepts that they learn in school. Equally important: the connections that they’ll form with each other along the way.

CUSTOMIZED TO FIT YOUR NEEDS

Our program is customized to fit the needs of each unique school group. The program director will work with your school to create a camp program that will enhance what students are learning in the classroom and provide the most valuable learning experience.

SCIENCE CAMP CURRICULUM

Listed below are some of our lesson and activity offerings.  We are constantly improving our lessons/activities and adding new ones so this list changes often!  

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Daytime Lesson Blocks

These lesson blocks are 3 or 1.5 hours each and cover topics in marine science, forest/earth science, and skill building.   

3 hr Activity Block Options: Tide Pool Exploration, Nature Hike through local nature preserves
1.5 hr Activity Block Options: Marine Lab, Animal Adaptations, Life of Water, Team Building, Target Sports, Forest Ecology, Compass 101, and Nature Art

Student Choice Activity Options (1.5 hr): Arts and Crafts, Outdoor Living Skills, Reading in Hammocks, and Rec Sports

 
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Evening Activities

Evening activities are 1.5 hours long and take place after dinner. Each group will have one evening activity per day.

Options: Squid Dissection, Owl Pellet Dissection (with Earl the Owl!), Night Adaptations, Native Cultures, Astronomy, Crepuscular Avengers Game, and Campfire

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Offsite Trips

Offsite trips are available upon request. Additional fees are applied to the overall cost of camp.

Options: Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery & San Simeon Beach Ecology, Morro Bay Estuary Kayaking