How to Choose and Plan an Astronomical Field Trip
There are a few different topics that you can reliably trust that your kids will be interested in. Dinosaurs, construction vehicles, and proper belly-flop techniques are all worthy subjects, but if you’re looking for a great educational trip that’s sure to inspire your kids to keep exploring, there’s nothing quite like an astronomy field trip!
What is Astronomy?
At its most simple, Astronomy is the study of space, the stars, and everything else…out there. It is the oldest branch of the natural sciences, as cultures across the world have been studying the stars for literal millenia.
We’ve found star maps carved into mammoth tusks and ancient structures aligned to the sun and stars, but it’s impossible to really know the first time a human looked to the sky and began to wonder. For many years, astronomy was used for tracking the seasons and navigating the seas, but in modern times we are taking our knowledge of the stars ever further. We’ve landed rovers on Mars to search for life and we’ve even managed to send probes beyond the edge of our solar system!
Needless to say, recent years have been extremely exciting for the astronomical community.
Unfortunately, despite all of our incredible advancements in space-faring technology, astronomical field trips remain distinctly earth-bound. Even so, with a little bit of creativity and a cloud-free night, there are plenty of great ways to help your kids explore outer space!
What Kind of Astronomy Trip are you looking for?
In my mind, field trips have always been about learning more about topics experientially, but that can be a bit tricky when learning about outer space. It’s pretty hard to experience outer space directly!
Even so, there are several different types of field trips that can help your kids learn more about outer space and our continued efforts to understand humanity’s place in it.
Stargazing with Kids
I love getting the chance to go stargazing with my kids when I can!
As far as field trips with kids go, star-gazing remains one of the simplest ones you can do, as all you really need to have a good time is some space outside and a dark, cloudless sky. Unfortunately, more than 90% of all Americans live in areas with large amounts of light pollution, so dark skies are quite a bit more difficult to find than they were in the past.
You don’t have to travel very far outside of town before the sky darkens enough to see many of the brightest stars, but the further away you can get from bright lights, the better, as many of the faintest stars can’t be seen except in the darkest of skies.
The best way to maximize your star-gazing time is to find a camping spot in an area far enough away from a major city to give you some great views. The best spot that I’ve personally experienced was my family’s campsite in Badlands National Park, which came with the added bonus of waking up to bison and prairie dogs surrounding our tent!
If you need some help finding a good spot, some sites, like Hipcamp, have dark skies filters that you can use to find the best stargazing camping spots near you. (Plus, if you use my referral code, jacobs74d938, you can get $10 towards your first campsite booking!)
Also check out…
The Wonderful “Good-ness” Of Badlands National Park
Also check out…
The Wonderful “Good-ness” Of Badlands National Park
Constellation books
There are a ton of books you can get that do an excellent job of explaining the basics of stars and constellations to kids. Be sure to check your local library before buying any, but here are a few that I would suggest starting with.
What we see in the Stars: An Illustrated Tour of the Night Sky
This book was my own kids’ first introduction to constellations and space, and it is an absolutely beautiful place to start.
Stargazing for Kids: An Introduction to Astronomy
Astronomy Activity Book for Kids
Constellations for Kids: An Easy Guide to Discovering the Stars
Star-gazing Apps
Books are great resources for learning about the stars, but when it comes time to actually find the stars in the sky, it ca be hard to find the stars they mention. Instead, I like using the Star Walk 2 app on my phone when I want more details on what I’m seeing in the sky.
I really love this one because it can orient your phone’s screen to your real world position so you can more easily find specific objects or learn more about what you’re looking at in real time!
You can check it out here.
(Not an affiliate link. Just a really good app!)
Star-gazing Tours
If you decide to do your stargazing in a popular location, there’s a chance that you’ll be able to join a star-gazing tour!
Stargazing tours have several major benefits over watching the stars on your own. Many times, the tour guides may have access to professional level telescopes that can let you see planets, nebulas, and more with way more detail than you’d be able to see without. Plus the guides will also have lots of experience to share!
I’ve been on star tours in the Atacama desert twice, and highly recommend the experience, if you ever visit the area. Closer to home, I know Badlands National Park has regular ranger-guided star tours, and several other national parks have stargazing festivals throughout the year. A quick search of the NPS website returns 706 results for stargazing, so you’re pretty likely to find some great astronomy opportunities at a ton of different national parks!
I love America’s National Parks System and highly recommend taking advantage of their offerings as often as you can.
Telescopes for Beginners
While you don’t need a telescope to enjoy your time stargazing, bringing a good one along can help you to see a lot more than you’d be able to see otherwise. I’ve had the opportunity to use other people’s telescopes several times, but I admit that I only own a small birding telescope, myself. It’s great for spotting animal life in the distance or looking at craters on the moon, but isn’t quite strong enough to do a great job with stargazing.
If I had to pick one for myself, I’d love to spring for this app-enabled telescope from Amazon! It uses an app on your phone to help you easily calibrate the telescope to find planets, nebulas, and other celestial objects. It looks super simple and comes well-reviewed, but unfortunately does cost a bit for a first-time telescope.
If you’re looking for something less expensive, I would instead suggest this beginner’s telescope from Toyerbee. It’s still not the cheapest on the market, but comes well-reviewed and has plenty of magnification to still capture some great views!
StarSense Explorer DX 130AZ Telescope
ToyerBee 70mm telescope
Cameras for taking pictures of stars (Astrophotography)
Telescopes are awesome for getting to seeing the stars, but sometimes you’re going to want to share what you’ve seen with others. For that, you’ll need a camera capable of taking a picture of the stars!
There are some professional level astrophotography cameras out there, but if you’re just getting started, you might be surprised to learn that your phone may be capable of some pretty incredible shots on its own!
I’ve used my Pixel phones to take night-time photos several times over the years, and I have loved how well the pictures have turned out!
So long as you have astrophotography mode enabled, all you have to do is set your phone up with its camera facing the portion of sky you want and click to start the process. After that, you’ll need to keep your phone completely still as the camera essentially takes a 5-minute long video. At the end, the phone compresses the entire 5 minutes down into a single shot!
I’ve used water bottles and rocks as makeshift holders in the past, but I’ve generally found that buying a cheap tripod and a bluetooth shutter button can make the whole process way easier, since you can more easily aim your phone where you want it. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It just has to be able to hold your phone still.
65” Phone Tripod
Flexible Cell Phone Tripod and Bluetooth Remote Control
Also check out…
7 Great Ways To Add Education To A Camping Trip
Also check out…
7 Great Ways To Add Education To A Camping Trip
Other Astronomical Events to watch with kids
The stars tend to be visible in most rural locations, so long as you can get a cloudless night. But there are other astronomical events that depend a lot more on timing and location to see.
Luckily, many astronomical events occur on a repeating schedule so you can reliably predict when they will happen! In-the-Sky.org has a calendar of astronomical events that you can use to plan your next trip. (Embedded below)
Events like comets, meteor showers, and eclipses are regular and easy to predict, which makes them great choices for field trips. Other astronomical events, like auroras, are caused by irregular events and can’t be consistently predicted, though there are usually times where they are more or less likely to happen.
Other phenomena are completely unpredictable and you have to be lucky to spot. I will never forget the time I walked outside and saw a surprise asteroid hanging in the sky! It was small enough that astronomers completely missed it until it was less than a day away from Earth, but still big and close enough that my wife momentarily mistook it for the moon. It was absolutely incredible, and I will probably never be so lucky again.
Other phenomena like this include meteors and meteorites, or asteroids that pass close enough to be seen with a telescope, but not with the naked eye.
Watching Rocket Launches with kids
While stargazing trips are all about looking out at the beauty of space, watching a rocket launch is all about watching our attempts to explore the stars ourselves!
My family recently had the opportunity to watch a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral during a camping trip in Florida. We managed to get a great site at Moss Park Campground in Orlando where there is a lakeside boardwalk with a fantastic view of the skies over Canaveral. It was a fantastic location for watching the rocket launch from a distance. Plus, it was just a really good campground. Definitely check it out if you’re looking for a campsite in the Orlando area.
If you’d prefer a closer place to watch, Florida’s Space Coast website has a great list of popular viewing spots, as well. Just be aware that the closer to the actual launch site you get, the louder the launch will be. Even at a distance, rockets can be plenty loud enough to cause some kids stress.
If you have kids that are sensitive to noise, but who also want to experience a rocket launch, I’d suggest investing in a good pair of earplugs, like these kid-friendly ones from Alpine. Or these over-ear muting headphones, if they don’t like feel of in-ear earplugs.
While most rocket launches you can watch in the States occur at Canaveral, there are other launch sites you can check out both in the States and around the world. If you get the chance, it’s definitely worth checking out! For a complete schedule of rocket launches from around the world, you can visit RocketLaunch.live.
Museums and Planetariums with kids
Normally I prefer field trips that allow kids to experience things for themselves, up close and personal. However, that can be quite tricky when we’re talking about other planets and stars!
That’s where museums come in.
Most science museums in the US will have at least a couple of exhibits dedicated to space exploration, and these are fantastic resources for giving kids a way to learn about space in a more hands-on way than just reading books.
If you have access to a museum with a planetarium, star shows are also a ton of fun!
The quality of the exhibits varies greatly from museum to museum, but most will have plenty of graphical representations of our solar system and a variety of different constellations for younger kids as well as more informational displays for older kids who like to read.
One of the absolute best space museums in the US is the Smithsonian National Space and Aviation Museum in Washington D.C. In fact, if you find yourself in the area, I highly recommend exploring as many of the Smithsonian Museums as you can fit into your stay! (Protip: the DC Metro train system is reliable and inexpensive, so it can actually be both cheaper and easier to stay outside of DC and take the train in to see the sights!)
Archaeoastronomy
Archaeoastronomy is a blending of astronomy and archaeology, and is essentially the study of how ancient cultures studied and understood astronomical phenomena. It probably leans more towards archaeology than it does astronomy, but if you time your trip to locations like Chichen-Itza, Abu Simbel, or Stonehenge appropriately, you can witness the absolutely fascinating ways that ancient cultures arranged their architecture to align with the stars!
It’s worth noting that these areas do tend to get pretty crowded on the days when the stars line up with their design, but it’s a chance to see these archeological sites in a way that most people never get to experience, so there’s some give and take.
The night sky has been a constant presence in the life of humans for humanity. It has inspired countless artists, poets, and scientists over the millennia, and remains one of the easiest sources of beauty and mystery to access for most people around the globe.
Have fun exploring!
