Virtual Field Trips
Bring Sutter’s Fort to your classroom!
Want to connect your students to parks throughout California (including Sutter’s Fort SHP)?
Parks Online Resources for Teachers and Students ® are interactive virtual field trips for K-12 students.
PORTS is a great way to enhance your lessons- from learning about the ecosystems of a redwood or kelp forest to learning more about historical sites like Sutter’s Fort SHP, there are many ways to bring a PORTS live or recorded session into your classroom. They also have a large selection of instructional resources, like Flipgrids.
Registration for the live one-on-one sessions will open September 1st at the PORTS On Demand webpage and typically completely books up within hours. Recorded sessions for Sutter’s Fort are saved on the website.
PORTScasts are live broadcasts open to multiple classrooms. You can view the schedule here.
As the nonprofit partner of Sutter’s Fort, Friends of Sutter’s Fort is proud to help support the efforts of park staff providing these important virtual programs.
current virtual programs
Acorns: A California Staple
What foods can’t we live without? In this 45 minutes program from the California State Indian Museum, students will learn why beautiful, nutritious acorns are so important to Native Californians, and how they managed the land to have sustainable food and resources. This program is geared towards 3rd and 4th grades but all participants are welcome.
Program Day: Friday
Program Times: 9am, 11am, 1pm
Careers Past & Present at Sutter’s Fort State Historic Park
This recorded lesson dives into how Sutter’s Forts agricultural businesses in Mexican California, and the conflict and opportunities that came with them, contributed to the California we know today. We will discuss the hide and tallow trade, the process of turning wheat into flour, and how sailors contributed to the work done at the Fort. This program is geared to grades 3 to 5, but can be adapted to other grades with prior notice.
Sutter’s Fort Through Time
The diversity of California, today, is rooted in the events associated with Sutter’s Fort is the 1840s. By looking at these events, we can understand how and why John Sutter and other European Americans came to California, why the Fort was built, what jobs made the Fort operational, why the Fort was abandoned in 1850, and the impact the Fort had on the Indigenous population of the Sacramento Valley. Let’s learn about how the diversity and complexity of Sutter’s Fort has left a lasting impact on how and why we study the past. This program is geared to grades 3 to 5, but can be adapted to other grades with prior notice.
LIVE Sessions and Recorded Sessions
Program Days: Thursdays at 9am, 11am, 1pm
Learn more about all of the opportunities available for students and teachers through PORTS: