Community Outreach - Request a Speaker
Curious about cacti? Love to learn about lepidoptera? The Desert Museum can provide expert speakers on a wide variety of natural history topics. Presentations are typically 40-50 minutes long, and include a Powerpoint presentation. Don’t see your topic here? Request a custom presentation. Some presentations include hands-on artifacts, activities or tastings. Live animals are not included in these presentations. (Live animal presentations.)
- Sonoran Supermarket
- Today, basic survival for most of us means regular trips to the supermarket. But imagine living in the Sonoran Desert five hundred years ago! This program explores local resources that native peoples of the Sonoran Desert - Tohono O'odham, Yaqui, and Seri - have traditionally used for food, medicines, fibers, and more. You’ll get to explore the ethnobotany of our region, learning how to make your own rope from plant fibers and discovering foods and tools you might find in your own backyard.
- Seasons of the Saguaro: An Introduction to the Sonoran Desert
- Why is there a desert here? How have plants, animals and people adapted to these arid lands? Using the iconic saguaro as a focal point, this slide show/lecture/animal demonstration will introduce you to the important features that define the Sonoran Desert, strategies that animals and plants use to thrive here, and the seasonal cycles that make our Desert unique in the world!
- Kino Heritage Fruit Trees
- Many of the traditional foods of our region were brought here in colonial times by Spanish missionaries. As we trace the origins of these foods, we find that some of them go back through Spain to North Africa, the Middle East and even China! Here, we’ll focus on one group of crops, fruit trees, brought to the New World by Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries. It’s a fascinating history that you can taste today!
- Custom Presentation:
- What presentation topics are you interested in? (give as much detail as you can on the reservation form linked below)
Fees:
| $250 | For a 45-60 minute presentation |
Additional after hours and weekend fee:
| $150 | After 4 p.m. |
| $150 | Saturdays & Sundays |
Travel Fees for one-way distances 50 miles and over (not to exceed 150 miles):
| $100 | 50-100 miles |
| $200 | 101-150 miles |
| Free for Tribal Nations | |
Outreach Programming is limited to Pima, Santa Cruz, Pinal, Cochise and Graham Counties. Overnight accommodation charges may be required, depending on travel time and the duration of programming.
Reservations require a 30-day minimum advance notice. Availability hours are 9:00 a.m to 5:00 p.m.