Atchafalaya NHA Field Trips (44 Total)
The office of Tourism in Louisiana presents one of the most complete and wonderful lists of field trips available in our fair state. Please find below links to complete details for educational or family field trips to any of the more than 40 different destinations across the Atchafalaya National Heritage Area.
Please select from the list below to view complete details:
| Title | City |
| Acadian Memorial & African American Museum | St. Martinville |
| At the Acadian Memorial visitors discover who the Acadians were and why they came to Louisiana. Experience the magnificent mural at Acadian Memorial, a monument to the 3,000 men, women and children who found refuge in Louisiana in the 18th century. | |
| Acadian Village | Lafayette |
| Ten acres are dotted with examples of Acadian architecture at this folk life museum in Lafayette. Six furnished 19th century homes are connected by pathways to a replica chapel, blacksmith shop, and general store. | |
| Alexandre Mouton House | Lafayette |
| This house museum opened its doors to the public in 1954 as the original Lafayette Museum. Today, this three-story town house recalls 200 years of regional history through exhibits and tours. The museum includes permanent exhibits about the Civil War, period furniture, the city's nuns and convent community, and Mardi Gras. | |
| Barataria Preserve Environmental Education Center | Marrero |
| The Barataria Preserve is a natural area of approximately 20,000 acres featuring trails through bottomland hardwood forests, bald cypress swamp, bayous and marsh. The Barataria Preserve is home to alligators, egrets, deer, and other native delta species. | |
| Bayou Terrebonne Waterlife Museum | Houma |
| The Bayou Terrebonne Waterlife Museum looks at the area's dependence on the seafood and water transportation industries and the natural wonders of southeastern Louisiana's wetlands. The attractive permanent exhibit highlights the economic, social and natural history of Terrebonne Parish through an array of interactive displays. | |
| BREC- LSU-BRAS Highland Road Park Observatory | Baton Rouge |
| The Observatory is an authentic research station built in 1997. Visitors tour the observatory's dome area which houses a 20-inch reflecting Ritchey-Chretien telescope. The first floor of the facility houses small displays and an open meeting area. | |
| BREC's Bluebonnet Swamp Nature Center | Baton Rouge |
| All year round there are small animals, insects and fish that move about the waterways, treetops and grounds as visitors walk the easy trails and boardwalks. The scenery is characteristic of this part of the country and visitors can sense the quiet beauty of this natural habitat. | |
| Capitol Park Museum | Baton Rouge |
| The new museum's unconventional approach to interpreting history is why students gravitate to the interactive and creative exhibits on the history, economy, culture and diversity of Louisiana. With 35,000 square feet of gallery space, the museum can boast that it is the largest museum on in the history of Louisiana. | |
| Children's Museum of Acadiana | Lafayette |
| The Children's Museum of Acadiana's motto is "Learning By Doing." Children who visit the museum are delighted by a range of activities that stimulate their creativity and imagination, providing opportunities to learn through play. | |
| Chitimacha Museum | Charenton |
| The Sovereign Nation of the Chitimacha's history is presented at the Chitimacha Tribal Museum and Cultural Center in Charenton, about 45 minutes from Lafayette and 20 minutes from Franklin. | |
| Conrad Rice Mill | New Iberia |
| The mill is a rare surviving example of a factory which still uses a belt-driven power transmission system. A substantial portion of the mill's original equipment is in use today. Still a vibrant working rice mill, Conrad Rice Mill offers a line of rice, beans and spice products available nationwide. | |
| Heritage Museum and Cultural Center | Baker |
| The Heritage Museum and Cultural Center in Baker is about the American experience. There, permanent exhibits interpret and preserve Baker's history and show how this history is part of the bigger, national story. The site includes a collection of historic buildings where regional art and local history are on display. Exhibits are changed several times a year. Be sure to inquire what is on display. | |
| Iberville Museum | Plaquemine |
| Take a deep dive into Iberville Parish from first settlers to local music to the Louisiana high school boxing hall of fame. The Museum event has a complete building dedicated to the Atchafalaya Basin. | |
| Jean Lafitte Acadian Cultural Center | Lafayette |
| This Cultural Center is dedicated to teaching visitors about the area's Acadian heritage and the natural resources of Louisiana's Mississippi Delta region. A theater and permanent exhibit hall are housed in the Center's modern building. | |
| Jungle Gardens at Avery Island | Avery Island |
| Fields of hot pepper plants, a salt mine, and the TABASCO® sauce plant are the historic industry stops on Avery Island. Jungle Gardens is a man-made oasis that spans miles of tended gardens with imported color-camellias, azaleas, wisteria, bamboo, boxwood, and other exotic plant life. | |
| Lafayette Science Museum | Lafayette |
| The museum features a state-of-the-art planetarium with a 40-foot dome, a hands-on Discovery Area, an auditorium, classrooms, and over 10,000 square feet of exhibitions. The museum is committed to explaining and exploring the natural world, the universe, and the role people play in interacting with the world and the cosmos. | |
| Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site | St. Martinville |
| This large park teaches visitors about the influence of two French speaking groups who settled along the Bayou Teche that of Acadian farmers and wealthy French and Creole planters. Once part of Louisiana's royal domain, the historic site was first used as a vacherie, a cattle ranch, and later developed as an indigo plantation. | |
| Louisiana Art and Science Museum | Baton Rouge |
| The Louisiana Art and Science Museum (LASM) features changing fine art exhibitions, an Egyptian tomb exhibit, a creative playroom, an interactive science gallery, the Challenger Learning Center (CLC) and a planetarium with a large-format film theater. | |
| Louisiana State Archives | Baton Rouge |
| The site displays its collection of Work Project Administration (WPA) paintings depicting people and landscapes of 1930s Louisiana, rotating these artworks throughout the year. The 100-seat auditorium, conservation lab, records center and research library fill the entire first floor. | |
| Louisiana State Capitol | Baton Rouge |
| On top of the world! That's what students feel like when they visit the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge. The 450-foot art deco capitol building is the tallest building in town and represents the legislative powers that govern our state. | |
| Louisiana State Museum - Patterson | Patterson |
| The official state aviation and cypress sawmill industry museum houses two important collections documenting Louisiana's rich history. The Wedell-Williams Aviation Collection focuses on the legacy of Louisiana aviation pioneers, and the Patterson Cypress Sawmill Collection documents the history of the cypress lumber industry in Louisiana. | |
| Louisiana's Old State Capitol | Baton Rouge |
| This museum is as grand on the inside as it is on the outside. Gothic towers, stained glass windows, and massive front doors greet visitors. Marble floors and majestic wood details support the Grand Rotunda which is graced by a spiral staircase. | |
| LSU Hilltop Arboretum | Baton Rouge |
| Visitors to Hilltop Arboretum will find more than a quiet place to enjoy, far removed from the hustle and bustle of city life; they will also find a place to learn about Louisiana's flora. | |
| LSU Museum of Art | Baton Rouge |
| The LSU Museum of Art's (LSU MOA) permanent collection consists of over 3,500 objects. The collection includes both fine art pieces (drawings, prints, paintings, and sculptures) and decorative art objects (furniture, porcelain, silver, and textiles). | |
| LSU Museum of Natural Science | Baton Rouge |
| In the cool quiet halls of the LSU Museum of Natural Science, hundreds of seemingly active animals are busy nesting, climbing, hunting, and even flying. There are nine habitat dioramas constructed between the years 1955 and 1964. | |
| LSU Rural Life Museum and Windrush Gardens | Baton Rouge |
| LSU Rural Life Museum and Windrush Gardens is a five-acre outdoor museum set on over 450-acres of the old Burden Plantation in busy Baton Rouge. The museum includes more than 20 buildings divided into three areas. | |
| Magnolia Mound Plantation | Baton Rouge |
| Here, visitors are immersed into 19th century South Louisiana culture from the early River Road plantation days. This colonial period museum opened its doors in 1975 and continues to offer school tours, classes, lectures, exhibits, camps and historic preservation programs. | |
| Nottoway Plantation Restaurant & Inn | White Castle |
| Nottoway Plantation is the epitome of antebellum elegance and conspicuous consumption. Visitors can take in the riverfront view from the massive third floor veranda. The mansion reflects an unusual combination of Greek-Revival style architecture. The house was built with such rare innovations as indoor plumbing and hot and cold running water. | |
| Odell Williams Museum of African American History | Baton Rouge |
| The museum is an out-growth of the congregation's commitment to promote and educate people about Juneteenth and the achievements of African Americans. | |
| Old Arsenal Museum | Baton Rouge |
| This 1836 arsenal building was re-opened as a history museum in the 1960s and was refurbished in the early 1990s with exhibits reflecting Baton Rouge's military history with interactive exhibits and a host of stories that range from the 1700s to the present. | |
| Old Governor's Mansion | Baton Rouge |
| The mansion was constructed by the inimitable Huey P. Long in 1930. The mansion is the second executive home to occupy this site, replacing the antebellum home that had served as the official residence of Louisiana governors from 1887 until 1929, when it was demolished on orders from Governor Long. | |
| Opelousas Museum & Interpretive Center | Opelousas |
| Welcome to the birthplace of Zydeco! The Opelousas Museum and Interpretive Center is the repository for the Zydeco Archives Program started in 1996. The archives contain audio and video live-taped recordings, interviews, print media, photographs, and artifacts from the Southwest Louisiana Zydeco Music Festival. | |
| Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum | Lafayette |
| Rising steel, glass and stone walls and a showering waterfall sculpture first greet visitors to the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. | |
| Plaquemine Lock State Historic Site | Plaquemine |
| This man-made inland route assured safe maritime transport throughout World War II. Two original structures remain on-site and are listed with the National Register of Historic Places. | |
| Port Hudson State Historic Site | Zachary |
| Walking along the six miles of trails at Port Hudson State Historic Site, students will be walking the same grounds that were the site of the longest siege in American military history. | |
| Rig Museum | Morgan City |
| The first offshore oil well, drilled in 1947, was off the coast of Morgan City, Louisiana. The oil field was no longer bound to land-based operations. Today, the International Petroleum Museum and Exposition, locally known as the Rig Museum, resides there. | |
| River Road African American Museum | Donaldsonville |
| This museum is an official member of the National Park Service's Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Students learn about various routes to freedom of enslaved people in south Louisiana. | |
| Shadows-on-the-Teche | New Iberia |
| This three-story antebellum home overlooks Bayou Teche and was home to four generations of a family who treasured the furnishings, textiles, clothing, paintings, books, and toys that are still in the house. | |
| Southdown Plantation House/Terrebonne Museum | Houma |
| Today, the remaining plantation house, "servant quarters," and additional outbuildings stand as testimony to the lives and work of four generations of sugar planters and the subsequent sugar company workers. | |
| Southern University Museum of Art | Baton Rouge |
| The museum holds a collection of over 2,000 pieces of African and African American art. The museum is comprised of eight galleries, a stage, and a gift shop. There are five permanent exhibits. | |
| USS Kidd Veterans Memorial | Baton Rouge |
| The USS Kidd is a Fletcher class destroyer, one of the last ships of her era. She was awarded 12 battle stars in the Pacific during World War II and the Korean Conflict. The tour aboard the ship takes visitors through more than 50 inner spaces. | |
| Vermilionville | Lafayette |
| Vermilionville features several acres of history with 18 structures, including six original period homes, a schoolhouse, blacksmith forge and a chapel. This heritage and folklife park is alive with costumed interpreters, crafts, traditional cooking and music. | |
| West Baton Rouge Museum | Port Allen |
| A miniature-working model of a sugar mill highlights an interpretive exhibit that explains the sugar making process from the fields to the factory. The exhibit includes oral history recordings called Sugar Stories, of people from the area. | |
| Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center | Thibodaux |
| This field trip destination is about historical and natural resources that tell the story of the people who settled along the bayous, swamps and wetlands of southeastern Louisiana. | |
| Zachary Historic Village | Zachary |
| Zachary Historic Village is a park made up of a dozen buildings situated along several historic blocks in Zachary. It offers kids hands-on activities in a variety of disciplines. | |
