Planning Your Visit

When to Visit
School groups visit Pool Wildlife Sanctuary year-round since each season offers a unique perspective from which to investigate nature. Bike & Boat activities are available April through October.

Length of the Average Visit
The average program is a 1 ½ -2 hour naturalist led presentation of activities tailored to the needs of a group, but you may choose to extend your visit by scheduling more than one series of activities, utilizing self-guided packages and/or lunching in the pavilion or along the Little Lehigh.

Chaperones and Group Sizes
Chaperones are not subject to participation fees as long as an 8:1 student/chaperone ratio or less is maintained. Every group must have an adult chaperone.

Create a Schedule
Please call 610-965-4397, extension 36 to reach a naturalist to schedule your activities.

Visitor Responsibilities
Our activities are based either at a wildlife sanctuary filled with wild animals or along a river and nature is almost always unpredictable, so students should be under the supervision of teachers or chaperones at all times during self-guided activities. While students are participating in naturalist-led activities, chaperones are responsible for discipline. When you provide this oversight, our staff can provide the experiential education adventure that will make your field trip memorable. Schools lunching or snacking before or after activities should bring trash bags and remove trash after eating. Bagged lunches should not include glass bottles. Refrigeration is not available.

What to Wear
Participants should dress for the weather and wear appropriate footwear for scheduled activities. Close-toed shoes, such as old sneakers or water shoes, are required to wade in the Little Lehigh during creek studies.

Lunch
A pavilion is available for groups with bag lunches. Please book the facility in advance. Many groups also picnic along the stream, or sit in the shade of the woods and yew “cave”.

Souvenirs
There isn’t a store on-site, but animal sponsorships are available for students at a discounted rate of $5/animal on the day of the program.

Cancellations
Cancellations require 1 hour’s notice. Groups that cancel with less notice may be accessed a $25 cancellation fee, and be required to pay in advance for future programs.

Late Arrivals
Plan to arrive on time since missed time cannot be made up.

Traveling Time
The Pool Wildlife Sanctuary and Bike & Boat’s Lehigh River locations are within ½ to ¾ hour's driving time of most schools in Lehigh County.

Program Offerings
Full program offerings include:
• Bike and Boat - An experiential, hands-on and empowering approach to watershed education that utilizes the riparian zone of the Lehigh River as an outdoor classroom. Trips may be general nature or focus on history, biological diversity, human impact, environmental quality and more.
• Cottontails - A sensory hike, planting activity and bunny craft develop awareness of the modifications to the environment that occur as the seasons change.
• Creepy Crawlies – A hike, craft and live specimens of insects and their kin introduce insect anatomy, adaptations, lifecycles and arthropod niches in the ecosystem.
• Native American Life + Lore – A hike highlighting uses of available resources while focusing on the ingenuity and incredible survival capabilities of Native Americans is combined with training games and a traditional storytelling session.
• Pilgrims – A fall abundance hike demonstrates how the environment provides for the needs of people and other living things. We also dip candles, grind corn and shake butter for a corn bread treat while learning how natural resources impact human settlement.
•Winter Wings – A program devoted to avian adaptations that allow survival under extreme conditions. Featuring live owls, a site hike and an orange rind/ suet feeder activity.
Educators are also able to tailor a program to the needs of their class by selecting from a wide variety of available activities including:
• Bats/ IPM - Participants learn bat anatomy and how bats are an important tool in Integrated Pest Management.
• Hikes - Hike focus varies depending on topics selected. Selections range from animals to integrated pest management
• Lehigh River Watershed Museum - The museum houses exhibits focusing on all aspects of the Lehigh River watershed from history to diversity to the impacts of pollution.
• Microscope Study – Stereoscopes or field microscopes are used to view objects ranging from plant material collected in the field to a wide variety of animal specimens including fur, feathers, insect wings, bone and teeth.
• Pond Study - Students examine a pond habitat in order to identify aquatic organism survival strategies. Depending on the season, we may catch tadpoles and frogs, or use mini aquaria to view daphnia and worms.
• RiverLab/ Enviroscape - The remarkable RiverLab streamtable establishes the importance of a healthy riparian zone, the sometimes deadly consequences of human impact on stream buffers and the effect of stream bank remediation. An Enviroscape is used to demonstrate point and non-point source pollution, best management practices and the often unobvious ways that people pollute water every day.
• Plants/ Planting - A Velcro board and plant part pieces are used to demonstrate the location and function of plant parts. Students also learn about plant reproduction before planting seeds to take back to class.
•Stream Study – Your students will wade into the waters of the Little Lehigh Creek to conduct a biotic index, assess physical characteristics and perform chemical testing to determine stream health.
•Watershed – Using their bodies, a plastic tarp, powdered drink mix and a hose, students will learn how to identify the characteristics that define a watershed.
•Worms/ Recycling in Nature – Wriggly worms are used to illustrate the physical characteristics and contributions of decomposers.
•Wildlife Presentations - Our education animals include birds of prey, insects, mammals, amphibians and reptiles. Presentations illustrate adaptation, natural selection, niches, classification and diversity. We also have a variety of skulls, skins and taxidermy mounts for study.