K-12 Programs
The Trout Gallery Education Program provides lively, cross-disciplinary museum programs to K-12 and homeschool audiences. The programs encourage creativity and learning through meaningful encounters with art and cultural artifacts, and through participation in age-specific group activities and hands-on projects. Class size limited to 28 students. All programs are offered free of charge.
Fall 2027 Workshops
Please see 2026 Summer Programs for K-12 Programming from July-August
Workshops are free and open to any visiting group (5 ore more children) in the K-6th or 6th-12th grade age groups. Programs are 1.5 hours and include interactive activities in the gallery followed by a hands-on art making session in the Mumper Stuart Education Center. Please email trout@dickinson.edu or call (717) 245-1711 and ask to speak to Education to set up a workshop visit.
K-6th grades
Roots, Rings and Stories
In this tour, students will explore trees through three lenses: their biology, their role in American history, and their importance to individuals and communities. By looking at artworks that span Indigenous perspectives, colonization, expansion, and conservation, students will discover how trees can tell stories about nature, culture, and the many ways people have understood and depended on them.
*Part of nationwide commemorations of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, this tour invites young learners to see trees not just as part of nature, but as witnesses to American history, culture, and change.
Related exhibition: Branch: Trees in American Art
Can Machines Make Art?
In this K–6 museum tour, students will explore how creativity and technology have worked together across time. Traveling back 3,000 years, they will discover how some of the earliest artists used mechanical tools and inventive processes to bring their ideas to life. Then they’ll work their way from the middle ages to the present to see how artists have used machines, computers, and now artificial intelligence to create new kinds of artworks. Along the way, students will look closely, ask questions, and think about some of art’s biggest ideas: What is art? Does something have to be original to be creative? Who decides what counts as art? and Why do people make art in the first place? This tour encourages young learners to think like artists, inventors, and critics as they consider how human imagination and technology can work together—and how the meaning of art can change over time.
Related exhibition: Artifice: Aura and Authenticity from Ancient Molds to Machine Learning
6-12th grades
America’s Branches: Nature, History, and Human Stories
How much can a tree tell us about America? In this engaging tour students will discover how artists have used trees to tell many different stories about this land and its people. Looking closely at artworks from across American history, students will explore how trees can help us understand the experiences of Indigenous peoples, the impact of colonialism, westward expansion, the growth of industry and new technologies, and the rise of conservation and the environmental movement. Along the way, students will meet the artists, thinkers, inventors, and communities who found creative and practical uses for trees—and shaped the nation in the process.
*Part of nationwide commemorations of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, this tour invites learners to see trees not just as part of nature, but as witnesses to American history, culture, and change
Related exhibition: Branch: Trees in American Art
Art, Authorship, and A.I.
How do we judge a work of art when both people and technology help create it? In this program, students will explore how artists across history have used tools, systems, and machines to shape their work, from early mechanical devices and reproducible processes to today’s digital platforms and artificial intelligence. Through close looking and discussion, students will examine a range of case studies, learning how works were made, who contributed to them, and what role technology played in the final result. Along the way, they will develop and test their own criteria for evaluating art, considering questions such as: Does authorship matter? Who gets credit for a work made with assistance from tools, software, or AI? Can a work be meaningful, creative, or original if a machine helped produce it? The tour invites students to grapple with the ethical issues raised by AI-generated art, including questions of labor, ownership, influence, bias, originality, and the use of existing images and ideas as training material. By comparing historical and contemporary examples, students will see that debates about art, technology, and authorship are not entirely new—but that artificial intelligence introduces important new challenges and possibilities.
Related exhibition: Artifice: Aura and Authenticity from Ancient Molds to Machine Learning
Yearly Programs: Spring and Fall
Top Secret
5-8 year olds
Kids discover "top secret" treasures from The Trout's vaults in this program offered in collaboration with the Bosler Library. Offered the first Saturday of the month: Oct., Nov., Dec., Feb., Mar., Apr.
Culture Studio
6-8th graders
This free after-school program is held at Lamberton and Wilson middle schools each Fall and Spring. Students explore culture through the lens of art during an 8-week themed session related to current exhibitions at The Trout Gallery. Permission slips detail dates and times and should be turned in at school. Offered: After school to 5pm
Summer 2026
Summer Camp Programs
Area camps, homeschools, and other children's groups can schedule a free workshop or sign up for a weeklong camp program though an area partner.
Ongoing Programs
Bilingual, ESL, and Language Learning
The Trout Gallery offers award-winning programs that combine art and language to promote language acquisition and cultural appreciation. Language learning classes are available in Spanish, French, German and Italian. Please contact us to learn more about bilingual tours, ESL offerings, and language learning programs for your group.