Digital Field Trips
GCM Cl@ssroom
When visiting the Museum in person isn’t possible, GCM Cl@ssroom brings Glazer Children’s Museum learning directly into your classroom. Designed for PreK–4 educators, our digital field trips—called Think Studios—offer engaging, standards-aligned experiences that invite students to explore, create, and think like scientists, artists, and problem-solvers.
Each Think Studio is built by GCM educators to spark curiosity, encourage creativity, and connect learning to the real world. Through storytelling, hands-on challenges, and guided exploration, students don’t just watch, they participate, imagine, and discover. All Think Studios align directly with Florida State Standards and are easy to integrate into your classroom day.
Pricing
$25 per educator, per grade level
Title 1 Schools Free
Think Studios
Pre-K
Big feelings deserve big language. In this Think Studio, students explore emotions through storytelling and play as they create their own puppets and practice using words to express how they feel. This experience builds social-emotional skills, communication, and self-awareness.
Hard hats on! Students meet a real civil engineer and explore the engineering design process as they plan, design, and build a model city. This Think Studio introduces problem-solving, collaboration, and early engineering concepts through playful design challenges.
Kindergarten
What makes us special? Students explore similarities and differences, celebrate individuality, and create self-portraits that come together as a class gallery. This Think Studio builds empathy, self-expression, and community through art and discussion.
Young learners sharpen their observation skills by using all five senses to explore the natural world. Students create a personal observation notebook and investigate Florida plants and wildlife, building scientific thinking and curiosity they can carry all year long.
1st Grade
Inspired by Peter H. Reynolds’ Ish, this art-based Think Studio celebrates creativity, resilience, and self-expression. Students explore the idea that there’s no wrong way to create as they design their own imaginative worlds through drawing.
Science is in motion! Students explore gravity, force, and friction through playful experiments and hands-on testing as they design and refine their own marble runs. This Think Studio introduces the scientific process through inquiry and experimentation.
Students learn about an inspiring woman in STEM while taking on a hands-on bridge-building challenge. This Think Studio encourages curiosity across subjects and helps students see themselves as capable problem-solvers and future innovators.
Meet a video game developer and discover how coding brings games to life. Students learn about commands and sequences, storyboard their ideas, and design their own games—building computational thinking and creativity along the way.
2nd Grade
Inspired by Faith Ringgold’s Tar Beach, students explore storytelling through art and culture. After examining patterns, themes, and history, each student creates a quilt square that comes together as a collaborative class artwork.
Students explore the muscular, skeletal, and respiratory systems through movement and model-building. By visualizing how their bodies work and creating a working set of lungs, learners connect anatomy to real-life function.
Second graders build on coding fundamentals as they explore sequences and commands through storytelling and game design. This Think Studio strengthens logic, creativity, and problem-solving skills.
3rd Grade
Students learn the legend of origami cranes through literature and storytelling, then practice patience and collaboration as they fold cranes together. This Think Studio blends art, literacy, and social-emotional learning with a message of hope and peace.
Light takes center stage as students explore reflection and refraction. Through hands-on experiments, learners bend light, create colorful patterns, and discover how science and art intersect.
Students meet a climate scientist and explore renewable energy solutions. By designing a solar updraft tower, learners discover how science and innovation can help protect our planet while building environmental awareness.
4th Grade
Students explore theme, tone, and expression through poetry and discussion. Using recycled text, they create original blackout poems, transforming existing words into powerful personal expression.
Energy is everywhere! Students investigate electrical, potential, and kinetic energy as they design and build a kinetic bridge. This Think Studio brings abstract science concepts to life through hands-on engineering.
Fourth graders dive deeper into renewable energy as they explore climate science and engineering solutions. Through design challenges and real-world connections, students see how science can shape a more sustainable future.
Free STEM Digital Field Trips
In 2021, Glazer Children’s Museum received the IF/THEN Gender Equity Grant to create STEM learning experiences that promote equity, representation, and belonging in science and engineering.
Rooted in the belief that everyone is a scientist, Team GCM educators developed three free, standards-aligned digital field trips for grades Pre-K through 4. Each experience features real STEM role models from the IF/THEN® Collection, original educator-led videos, and hands-on learning that builds curiosity, confidence, and STEM identity.
All programs align with Florida State Standards and are free for educators.
Digital Field Trip Experiences
Pre-K and Kindergarten
Meet a civil engineer and explore how cities are designed. Students learn the engineering process and use it to build a model city of their own.
1st and 2nd Grade
Meet a video game developer and learn how coding brings ideas to life. Students explore commands and sequences, then storyboard a game of their own.
3rd and 4th Grade
Meet a climate scientist working on real-world solutions. Students explore renewable energy and design a structure that harnesses the power of the sun.
How to Access These Free Resources
Educators can request access to all grade-level digital field trips by completing the STEM Digital Field Trip Request Form. Programs are delivered through Canvas. After submitting the form, you’ll receive an email with instructions to activate your access.
Professional Development for Educators
Glazer Children’s Museum partnered with the Association of Science and Technology Centers and the National Girls Collaborative Project to offer free professional development for K–8 educators.Led by GCM educators and former classroom teachers, this training shares practical ways to use IF/THEN® resources to support STEM learning and identity in the classroom.