About Our Trunks
Traveling Trunks are standard-aligned educational programs designed to bring highly engaging sea turtle biology, science, and conservation topics to formal classrooms.
Packaged in the form of wheeled trunks, each program contains the resources a classroom teacher needs to teach a multi-week four lesson unit. Instructional resources such as lesson plans, scripted slide decks, videos, pre-laminated activity items, biological models, turtle replicas, and scientific tools are provided so the program can seamlessly be integrated into your instructional plans.
Two Ways to Participate
Borrow a Trunk (Teachers)
Teachers may borrow a Traveling Trunk free of charge through one of our local partner organizations. Partners act as lending hubs within their counties.
Use the interactive partner map on each program page to find the organization serving your area and follow their instructions to request a trunk. Loan procedures and timelines vary by partner.
Become a Partner (Organizations, Schools & Districts)
Organizations, schools, and school districts may purchase a trunk and serve as a local lending hub for teachers in their area.
Those interested in obtaining a trunk to serve as a network hub should contact the Director of Education, Rebecca Mott (rmott@inwater.org).
Partnerships are limited to organizations, schools, and districts; individuals are not eligible.
Available Programs
Click each button below to learn more about each particular program’s objectives, contents, lessons, and who to contact to request a loan in your area:
Frequently Asked Questions
In the past, IRG managed reservations for teachers in the St Lucie County and Martin County regions.
Currently, our partners at St Lucie County Public Schools and Martin County Public Schools manage trunk reservations for teachers working in the public system. The team at Blowing Rocks Preserve manages reservations for Martin County as well. Please reach out to the appropriate contacts listed on the partner map to arrange your trunk reservation in these regions.
On occasion, IRG may be able to lend out internal trunks to community organizations and private schools, providing FREE programming. Please contact our K-12 Program Coordinator, Yashira Cruz Rodriguez, at ycruzrodriguez@inwater.org to inquire about a reservation.
Trunks are too heavy and large to ship via mail.
Each of our partnering organizations has specific logistical arrangements for their reservation system, ranging from in-person pick-up to internal district delivery systems. Please reach out to the partnering organization in your area to coordinate accordingly.
The Traveling Turtles curriculum will allow you to teach lesson 1 in combination with any other lessons. We recommend that you teach lesson 1 followed by lesson 4, Rehab or Release, if short on time.
Our other trunks have lessons that build on each other, and we do not recommend skipping any.