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.
Dec 3, 2008 - Dec 3, 2008
Perhaps no individual has left a more indelible impact on the cuisine, culture, commerce and customs of southern Arizona and Sonora, Mexico than 17th -century Jesuit priest Father Euesbio Francisco Kino. Indefatigable explorer, humanitarian, and Renaissance man, Kino was beloved by the Pimans among whom he spent 24 years.
On this full-day tour to Sonora, Mexico, ethnographer, historian and author Thomas E. Sheridan will transport us back to Father Kino's time to appreciate the hardships and legacy of this intrepid padre. Our luxury motorcoach will provide present day vistas of the deserts, mountains and river valleys where Kino labored.
We'll journey to Magdalena, Sonora to visit the church and Kino rotunda, where Kino is buried. Then onward to the pueblo and spectacular mission church at Tubutama, in the Altar Valley of Sonora. On our return we'll visit the delightful mission at San Ignacio noted for it's carved ...
Dec 6, 2008 - Dec 6, 2008
In the Australian Outback everyone does it. In the Sonoran Desert the rain in vain falls mainly down the drain. See how this bounty is harvested at a housing co-op, on neighborhood streets, in urban homes and in a community garden. Calculate how much water can be collected off of your roof and find out how you can divert and store rainwater. This tour is co-sponsored by the Tucson Botanical Gardens. Brad Lancaster of the Sonoran Permaculture Guild and author of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands (www.harvestingrainwater.com) is the instructor.
Jan 17, 2009 - Jan 17, 2009
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. Transportation provided in vans from museum. 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.
Jan 24, 2009 - Jan 24, 2009
Southeastern Arizona's desert grasslands and agricultural areas are dotted with artificial lakes, ponds and mudflats providing habitat for winter birds, including are least twelve species of raptors and numerous waterfowl (ducks and geese). Thousands of sandhill cranes migrate from as far away as Alaska to spend the winter near Willcox. Join us for a spectacular day of discovery as we explore the Willcox area--one of the region's birding hot spots. Includes van transportation. We will meet at Park Place Mall. Bring a sack lunch. Very little walking is required.
Feb 7, 2009 - Feb 7, 2009
Southeastern Arizona's desert grasslands and agricultural areas are dotted with artificial lakes, ponds and mudflats providing habitat for winter birds, including are least twelve species of raptors and numerous waterfowl (ducks and geese). Thousands of sandhill cranes migrate from as far away as Alaska to spend the winter near Willcox. Join us for a spectacular day of discovery as we explore the Willcox area--one of the region's birding hot spots. Includes van transportation. We will meet at Park Place Mall. Bring a sack lunch. Very little walking is required.
Feb 14, 2009 - Feb 14, 2009
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. Transportation provided in vans from museum. 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.
© Jack Carroll
Feb 22, 2009 - Feb 28, 2009
The Mexican colonial town of Alamos sits in southern-most Sonora, where the deciduous tropics meet the Sierra Madre. This area is considered to be the grandmother of our Sonoran Desert, as most of these plants are ancestral to our northern desert vegetation. The town dates back to the 16th century and has been visited by the Spanish explorers Coronado and Cabeza de Vaca. The discovery of rich silver deposits in the late 1600s put Alamos on the Camino Real and brought wealth, a governing class, culture and fine architecture. Alamos was once the capital of Sonora.
Our tour will include tours of the local history museum, the town and colonial homes and gardens, a visit to the old mine of La Aduana, bird and botany walks, a full ...
Mar 2, 2009 - Mar 10, 2009
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 ...
Mar 21, 2009 - Mar 21, 2009
Did you know that we had large Ice Age mammals in southern Arizona? At the Murray Springs archeological site along the San Pedro River near Sierra Vista we will learn about which of the Pleistocene megafuana were here and which were hunted. Alongside these mammals lived the Clovis people, great hunters, which we know from their fluted projectile points. We'll also take a close look at the river terraces deposited thousands of years ago and discern what they tell us about past climate. After a morning exploring the Ice Age we'll head toward the Tombstone Hills where we'll examine the Paleozoic marine limestone ridges. On the return trip we will stop at the ...
Mar 28, 2009 - Mar 29, 2009
Bob Scarborough will wax wild about the geology surrounding the central Arizona copper mining town of Globe and that of the Superstition Mountains.
The first day takes us right through Globe into the Sierra Ancha, a high wilderness of flat lying Precambrian units incised by steep canyons. Here we see ripple marks in the Apache Group and mass diabase intrusions, along with incredible views into the Tonto Basin, where the Salt River runs. In the afternoon we return to Globe to visit Besh-Ba-Gowah Archeological Park which contains reconstructed ruins of Salado culture. The site includes a kiva and a two-story adobe structure. The end of the day we can either walk the historic downtown of visit an old CCC camp just outside of, and above the town. We will spend the night at the Comfort Inn.
On day two we return to the Tonto Basin and walk up to the Tonto Cliff Dwellings and tour the small museum. We next stop at Roosevelt Dam and discuss basin and range geology and its role in the formation of this basin. Along the Apache trail we drive through two different big caldera blowout volcanoes and past a third one with some new excitement, just learned. Our return route is through Florence Junction.
There is very little required walking. The price is based on double occupancy of rooms and meals are not included.
Apr 11, 2009 - Apr 11, 2009
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 16, 2009 - Apr 18, 2009
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 ...
Apr 27, 2009 - May 3, 2009
Explore the stark sandstone geology and the ancient native cultures of
Arizona's Colorado Plateau.
Visit several villages on the Hopi Mesas where we will see artisans making pottery, silver jewelry and Kachina dolls and be able to talk to them and purchase their wares. Among the villages that we visit is Old Oraibi, which has been continuously inhabited for 1100 years, where residents still live in the traditional way and which is the site that provided archeological wood specimens pushing the Tree Ring calendar back to 1200 A.D. Along the Hopi-Navajo border we stop at Coal Mine Canyon, where we study fossils and discuss the formation of its colorful, deep-cut canyon walls. There are dinosaur tracks that we'll ponder outside of Tuba City, Anasazi cliff dwellings at Navajo National Monument (Betatkin Ruins) and a petrified coal swamp on Black Mesa. From Kayenta, we'll take a Navajo-guided sunrise tour of Monument Valley. We then travel south to Canyon de Chelly, exploring White House Ruins, Antelope Ruins and seeing Spider Rock, a 1000 foot high sandstone spire. The following day takes us to the Hubbell Trading Post, where Navajo weavers offer their wares, then to the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert. The return drive through the scenic Salt River Canyon allows us to touch "The Great Unconformity", some 700 million years of missing geologic time.
Itinerary
April 27
Leave Tucson on Sunday ...
Sep 13, 2009 - Sep 17, 2009
Celebrate Mexican Independence Day in the famous pottery village of Mata Ortiz, Chihuahua. Visit potters in their homes and watch them work, using the same techniques employed by the ancient inhabitants. This is a unique opportunity to experience the village and purchase pottery directly from the artists. Visit the ruins of Paquime, the archaeological site that inspired Juan Quezada to reinvent the pottery process that became a local industry. This trip takes place over Mexican Independence day which is a day of fiesta. There will be a parade, rodeo, dances and general merry-making. Price is all inclusive, based on double occupancy. Transportation is provided in vans.
Oct 2, 2009 - Oct 11, 2009
Remote. Legendary. Back when the world was young it looked like this. In Galapagos it still does. Come with us to the one place where fear has never existed. A visit to the Galapagos archipelago is surely the dream of anyone interested in the natural world. These islands, located about 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, are home to some of the world's most unusual wildlife. You can see riveting blue-footed booby behavior, flocks of flamingos, frigate birds, marine iguanas and Sally Lightfoot crabs on lava rocks, and encounter the Galapagos tortoises. It's not the biological diversity that will astound you; it's the sheer number of animals, and you will ...
