Sonoran Studies: Trips, Tours & Classes for adults and families
These programs are offered to the public to create a better understanding of our Sonoran Desert through enjoyable and informative experiences, and provide opportunities to learn practical applications for working and playing in balance with our environment.
If you have considered taking our in-depth docent training program, but are not ready to commit the time, you may be interested in our new Sonoran Desert Naturalist Certificate program (Learn more).
Cancellation Policy
For part or full day classes, a full refund less 25% cancellation fee will be given. For multi-day programs specific cancellation fees apply. No refunds can be made within 7 days of any program.
Holiday Gift Certificates
How about a Sonoran Studies Gift Certificate? View the details page for more information and to purchase your gift certificate.
Feb 13, 2010 - Feb 13, 2010
Arizona's mineral rich mountains were home to numerous boomtowns during the 1870s and 1880s. Visit an old mining district in the Santa Rita Mountains. Learn to identify azurite, malachite, pyrite, garnet and other Arizona minerals, and make a mineral collection of your own. We will meet at the museum and can pick up people at the ASARCO Mineral Discovery Center as well. Bring a sack lunch. Total hiking distance is one and a half miles, with two relatively steep inclines.
Mar 1, 2010 - Mar 9, 2010
The Best of Baja - Whale Watching & Natural History
Join us for this comfortably paced, comprehensive and diverse whale watching and natural history learning vacation in one of the most storied places on earth. Desert delights abound during the scenic road trip between the border and fabled Scammon's Lagoon: Boojum forests, immense cardon cacti, and brilliant spring flowers. Enjoy two days with boating on Scammon's, the gray whales' largest and best-protected migratory destination, where biologists often count over 2000 gray whales and several hundred newborn calves during our visit! ASDM teams up with Baja's Frontier Tours to give you that ...
Mar 13, 2010 - Mar 13, 2010
Join the Botany staff for a leisurely hike into a canyon near the Museum where we'll discuss the different varieties of desert flora. Whether we have a bountiful flower year or a ho-hum season, there will be plenty to look at and discover. We'll hike in washes and on rocky trails at an easy pace allowing ample time to botanize along the way. Total distance traveled will be two miles. Our staff will scout out the hot spots ahead of time and lead you to the best of the best.
Mar 17, 2010 - Mar 17, 2010
Join the Botany staff for a leisurely hike into a canyon near the Museum where we'll discuss the different varieties of desert flora. Whether we have a bountiful flower year or a ho-hum season, there will be plenty to look at and discover. We'll hike in washes and on rocky trails at an easy pace allowing ample time to botanize along the way. Total distance traveled will be two miles. Our staff will scout out the hot spots ahead of time and lead you to the best of the best.
Rudist Reef Colony photo by Karen Carr © Smithsonian Institution
Mar 27, 2010 - Mar 27, 2010
Join us as we walk on 100 million old fossilized patch reefs of the ancient Bisbee Basin concentrated in the southern third of Cochise County. These paleo-communities once teemed with life and the interaction among the organisms indicate these reefs were complex and diverse ecosystems. Explore fossilized mollusks, algae, sponges, and corals to understand reef ecosystems and see extinct life forms.
The afternoon brings us to historical downtown ...
Apr 3, 2010 - Apr 3, 2010
George Montgomery, Curator of Botany, shares his knowledge of how to recognize many of the larger plants in our surroundings, and about the special adaptations they have for living here. Learn about the climatic and geographic parameters that influence which trees and shrubs live in our region, and about the ecology of these plants. Class includes indoor presentations as well as outdoors grounds tours.
Apr 10, 2010 - Apr 10, 2010
Participate in a century-old Sonoran Desert springtime ritual of harvesting cholla buds. After collecting this bounty from a site near the Museum, we will prepare it, along with other traditional foods such as tepary beans and nopalitos, and we will experiment making drinks with sweet "tunas". We will delve into the natural history of the cholla and its sister cactus the prickly pear, discuss associated myths, learn about the little red cactus-sucking bug that made some men rich and others slaves. The class concludes with a feast of native foods.
Apr 12, 2010 - Apr 17, 2010
Hummingbirds, the smallest of North America's birds, endear us with their brilliant colors and rapid aerobatics antics. Southeastern Arizona is the hummingbird capital of the United States with more than fourteen different species of hummingbirds. Join us for a trip to hotspots in Miller Canyon to watch and to learn about their behavior. We will meet for the field trip at I-10 and Speedway. Bring a sack lunch.
Your instructor, Karen Krebbs, has worked at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum for over 20 years. For more than three years Karen was the primary caretaker of the hummingbirds in the Hummingbirds exhibit at the Desert Museum. Karen is ...
Apr 24, 2010 - Apr 24, 2010
Visit one of the Southwest's finest Indian museums hidden away in the Little Dragoon Mountains an hour's drive east of Tucson. The Amerind was founded in 1937 and originally served as an archaeological and anthropological research center. From 1958 to 1961 the Amerind oversaw the excavation of Casas Grandes Ruins (also called Paquime) in northern Chihuahua, Mexico. One of the largest prehistoric ruins in the greater Southwest, Casas Grandes was a major trading center where elite goods from central Mexico (shell, copper bells, Macaw feathers) were traded for turquoise and other products from Mesoamerica's northern frontier. For most of its early years the Amerind Museum was open only to groups and only by appointment, but in 1985 the Amerind opened it doors to the public. We will take a docent-guided tour through the museum and art gallery which features the works of western artists such as Frederick Remington and William Leigh and from there we'll be treated to a behind the scenes tour of Amerind's extensive research collections, which number over 20 thousand objects. On the return trip we will stop at the Singing Wind Bookshop, which specializes in books about the Southwest. This book store does not take credit cards. Lunch will be included.
© Piet Van de Mark 2008. Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde
May 12, 2010 - May 18, 2010
Mesa Verde in southwestern Colorado is renowned for its striking landscape and spectacular cliff dwellings, many of which were constructed in the A.D. 1200s. These same places have received much notoriety as the last homes of the so-called "Anasazi" before the region's abrupt abandonment in A.D. 1280. Where did these people come from and where did they go?
To understand the great span of Pueblo history in the Four Corners region we need to begin our exploration at sites situated in the archaeologically rich Montezuma Valley, an amazing, beautiful and comparatively little-known basin country that lies at the foot of the Mesa Verde.
Jun 27, 2010 - Jun 27, 2010
The Sonoran Desert silently celebrates its new year with the swelling of the saguaro's rosy fruits. Join us to gather and prepare saguaro fruits in the traditional O'odham. manner, using a harvesting pole made from the ribs of the giant cactus, then cooking the fruit until it thickens into a rich, sweet syrup. We will learn about other desert plants that were important food sources for native peoples and about the animals who use the saguaro for food and shelter. Includes a native foods lunch.
Aug 14, 2010 - Aug 14, 2010
August is the season that the beautiful red fruit of the prickly pear cactus ripen. Join us in harvesting this fruit, in making jelly, syrup and frozen sorbet, and finding out about how this food is important to many desert animals and peoples. We will learn about the cochineal insect, which bestowed the deep red color unto the Spanish kings' robes as well as that of the British Red Coats coats. We will also harvest and prepare nopalitos, tender prickly pear pads, a Mexican staple for over a millennia. Other desert foods such as agave, cholla buds, and mesquite will be part of the menu. This is an occasion to not only don your apron, but also prepare yourself for a grand desert foods feast at the end of the class. Price includes lunch.
Aug 22, 2010 - Aug 22, 2010
August is the season that the beautiful red fruit of the prickly pear cactus ripen. Join us in harvesting this fruit, in making jelly, syrup and frozen sorbet, and finding out about how this food is important to many desert animals and peoples. We will learn about the cochineal insect, which bestowed the deep red color unto the Spanish kings' robes as well as that of the British Red Coats coats. We will also harvest and prepare nopalitos, tender prickly pear pads, a Mexican staple for over a millennia. Other desert foods such as agave, cholla buds, and mesquite will be part of the menu. This is an occasion to not only don your apron, but also prepare yourself for a grand desert foods feast at the end of the class. Price includes lunch.
Sep 25, 2010 - Sep 25, 2010
We'll provide you with food for the belly and some food for thought and on this day tour of local farms. Learn how the San Xavier Cooperative Farm's return to traditional foods is reaping cultural as well as health benefits. Harvest fall crops at the Sleeping Frog Farm and at the Marana Farm. Enjoy a lunch prepared from seasonal, local ingredients, and find out about farmer-direct Community Supported Agriculture opportunities. Price includes a take-home bag of fresh produce and lunch.
Nov 6, 2010 - Nov 13, 2010
Consider New Mexico—a land of enduring cultures and cultures of enduring art. From the delicately rendered pre-historic Clovis point to meticulously crafted jewelry of today—each culture that has touched this land has contributed its own distinctive traditional arts that complement the beauty that is New Mexico.
Join author, Indian trader Mark Bahti, along with New Mexico Pueblo Indians, artists and historians, to savor the arts and culture of one of America's most amazingly beautiful places! Personally hosted by Mary & Piet Van de Mark of Baja's Frontier Tours, this is their most comprehensive and wonderful Indian Country learning vacation. Not ...
