class field trip Discovery Center is proud to offer a wide variety of field trip styles and formats to suit your classes’ interests, learning level, and needs. Talk to any child who has grown up in the Rockford region, and he or she will most likely have a fond memory of a field trip to our museum.

Basic Museum Tour

Explore over 300 hands-on permanent exhibits on two floors of hands-on fun! Interactive exhibits cover topics on electricity, weather, agriculture, communication, color and light, air and flight, mathematics, simple machines, and the human body. Use Discovery Center Museum to teach a lesson your students won’t forget!

Next Generation Science Standards: ESS2.BD, ESS3.B, ETS1.AB, LS4.CD, LS3.A, PS2.AB PS3.ABCD, PS4.ABC

Length: 2 hours (longer if additional programs, tours or lunchtime is added)

Cost: $5.00 per student or chaperone for groups of 10 or more people; one free teacher per class for public and private schools. Other groups of 10 or more people are $5.00 per person.

Chaperones: We suggest a ratio of one adult to five children for all tours, but require this ratio for self-guided tours.

Planning Your Visit:
We are open 7 days a week from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. Monday - Friday we can begin guided tours as early as 9:00 am. When you contact us to reserve your visit, have several dates in mind and know the number of people in your group. Our calendar fills quickly, especially for late spring field trips. For the best choice of dates please contact us to make your reservation 3-12 months before your anticipated field trip date.

Reservations:
Reservations can be made up to a year in advance. Field Trip reservations must be finalized and confirmed at least 10 business days before your scheduled visit. To begin the reservation process, complete the Group Visit Request Form. Someone will contact you to complete the reservation. For additional questions, contact us at groupvisit@discoverycentermuseum.org or phone 815-963-6769.

Focused Field Trips

A range of theme-based field trips that inspire focused learning.

Planetarium Field Trips

Explore the night sky in our Planetarium.

Terrific Tuesdays

A 3-hour extravaganza of science, movement, and art at three museums!

Add-ons

Planetarium - $30/session - 30 minutes. Max 30 people/session.

Lunchroom $10 to reserve/session 30 minutes. Max 60 people/session.

Focused Field Trips - $50/session - 45 minutes. Max 20 PreK Students or Graders or 30 1st -8th Graders/ session

Spring 2018 Tours

In addition to the permanent exhibits at Discovery Center, the temporary exhibit Curious George^TM: Let's Get Curious! will be here January 27 - May 13, 2018. Students will find themselves transported to the neighborhood in which Curious George lives with his friend, The Man with the Yellow Hat. here they will encounter a variety of activities that invite them to learn like that mischievous monkey: through direct experience and a variety of problem solving opportunities. Through this process of inquiry, children's thinking becomes more visible and the value of creative solutions skines. Key concepts in science, technology, engineering and math are woven and layered throughout the exhibit.