Plan Your School Fieldtrip

Planning Your School Group Visit (2021/2022 School Year)

Thank you for your interest in touring our site with your school group! This guide will assist you in planning your upcoming visit to Los Luceros Historic Site.

Group Visit Experiences:

• Guided walk through the historic community
• Tour the 17^th century hacienda
• Visit with the farm animals
• Hike along the Río Grande and bosque

Key Themes Covered:

• Indigenous Tewa cultures of the Upper Río Grande
• European contact and colonization
• Conflict and contested space
• Water and other natural resources
• Agriculture, farming, and ranching

Requirements:

• School groups must submit a request at least two weeks prior to the date of their visit. The earlier the better as dates fill up quickly.
• A minimum of one attentive chaperone to every eight students is needed for a successful visit. Please see the chaperone requirements below.
• No cellphone use while on the tour
• There is a two-class maximum for any given time slot due to staffing and COVID-safe practices
• Staff and docents are not disciplinarians. Teachers and chaperones are responsible for children’s behavior including enforcing current health orders.
• As a state agency, all health orders will be followed. Please Note: If health orders and Department of Cultural Affairs policies change and no longer allow for on-site school groups you will be contacted by site staff and your fieldtrip will be cancelled.

Chaperone Requirements:

• Know the names of the students in your group
• Keep your student group together and stay with your group
• Escort students into restrooms to ensure proper behavior
• Ensure that students walk while in the historic buildings and use inside voices
• Make sure students are not chewing gum or taking food into the historic buildings
• Ensure students do not touch objects, sit on furniture unless it is okay to do so
• Assist teachers with name tags for students and adults if not already done
• After lunch, ensure that students clean-up after themselves
• Enforce any current health orders including mask mandates.

State Benchmarks and Standards:

School group visits to LLHS are designed to complement the New Mexico Department of Education’s benchmarks and standards. The visits are customized to three grade groups: K-4, 5-8, 9-12. See the end of this guide for a complete list of the standards and supporting activities.

Admission Fee Waiver

The admission fee will be waived for all public, private, and home schools that schedule in advance and complete steps 1-2.

 

STEP #1 Schedule Your Visit

Request a Date and Time

Follow the link below to request a date and time for your school group visit. Carlyn Stewart, our Instructional Coordinator, will contact you after you submit the form to confirm your spot.

Click Here to Request a Date and Time

Notes on Tour Dates and Times

• School group tours are only offered at LLHS on Tuesdays for the Fall of 2021
• Tours are conducted from 10 am - 12 pm or from 1 pm – 3 pm.
• Up to two classes can be scheduled in each time slot
• For the 10 am – 12 pm timeslot, picnic benches in the Visitor Center will be available so you can enjoy a sack lunch when the tour is over (lunch is not provided).

 

STEP #2 Prepare Your Group

Required Preparation Activity (60 Minutes – In Class)

Click Here to Download Activity

Timeline activity

Please have your students read through the provided information and complete the timeline worksheet. This will enable them to have a basic understanding of the site's history prior to their visit.

 

STEP #3 Visit Los Luceros Historic Site

What Students Should Bring

• Sack Lunch
• Water Bottle
• Sunscreen
• Closed-toed shoes (no sandals due to walk in the bosque)
• Hat
• Face Mask

Safety Considerations

• Have groups stay with chaperones during their visit
• Take note of the seasonal weather and prepare accordingly
• Do not climb on trees, buildings, rocks, cliffs, or historic structures
• Do not disturb wildlife
• Immediately report injuries to a staff member

 

Directions
Heading north on Highway 69 from Espanola, turn west on County Road 48/ Los Luceros Rd. which dead-ends at the entrance to Los Luceros Historic Site. Keep an eye out for brown signs.

Arriving at LLHS

A staff member or docent will meet your bus in the parking lot and guide your group into the site. Please call the front desk at 505-476-1165 if your group is running early or late.

Site Stewardship

While visiting Los Luceros Historic Site there are two rules that are paramount:

• Visitors should stay on established roads and trails
• Visitors should not touch, move, or sit on historic objects and furniture.
• Visitors should not pick up artifacts off of the ground such as pottery sherds, historic metal, glass, or animal bones.

By following these rules visitors will comply with State and Federal laws protecting historic and archaeological sites.

ADA Compliance

Los Luceros Historic Site feaures two van-accessible parking areas and a paved path from the parking lot to the Visitor Center. The Visitor Center buildings, courtyard, and restroom are ADA compliant. Access to the historic buildings is via an unpaved dirt path/road. Special accommodations can be made for virtual reality tours of areas that are not easily accessible for visitors with limited mobility.  

Tours

Each class will be led on a two-hour tour through the museum, historic ranch complex, and nature trail. If two classes are booked, they will rotate through stations around the site. The tour involves walking nearly a mile on dirt roads and trails. Opportunities for restrooms will occur at the beginning and at the end of the tour. When weather is extremely hot or cold, more time will be spent in the Visitor Center and other climate-controlled areas of the site.

Lunch

If you chose the morning timeslot, classes will be led to our shaded picnic benches located by the Visitor Center at noon. There are both covered and uncovered tables to choose from. Staff, when available, will join the students at the tables for continued conversations and questions. After lunch, groups are expected to clean up after themselves and throw away all trash and food remnants. There is only one restroom available during this time, so we will stress that everyone should use the restroom at the beginning of the tour. There will be a sink available to wash hands.

Departing LLHS

We suggest that groups remain in the picnic areas until the bus has arrived and is ready for students to board. If a bus is delayed or departure is after 1pm, please alert the staff.

 

STEP #4 Solidify Your Visit

After visiting LLHS we offer many resources that allow your class to dive deeper into various aspects of the history of the site.

Follow-Up Lesson Plans:

Virtual Classroom Visits:

Los Luceros Historic Site participates in the Department of Cultural Affairs' "Invite an Educator" program. Simply add programs to your cart, "checkout" (all programs are free), and our educators will schedule a time to virtually present to your class on your chosen topic. We currently offer lessons on Sheep and Livestock, Archaeology, Riparian Zones, and Agriculture and Farming. We are excited to virtually visit your classroom!

Click Here to Schedule a Virtual Visit

 

New Mexico State Benchmarks Addressed in a Visit to Los Luceros Historic Site

I-History       II-Geography          III-Government     IV-Economics

Grades K-4:

I-A: Describe how contemporary and historical people and events have influenced New Mexico communities and regions.

I-B: Understand connections among historical events, people and symbols significant to United States history and culture

I-D: Understand time passage and chronology.

II-A: Understand the concept of location by using and constructing maps, globes, and other geographic tools to identify and derive information about people, places, and environments.

II-B: Distinguish between natural and human characteristics of places and use this knowledge to define regions, their relationships with other regions, and patterns of change.

II-C: Be familiar with aspects of human behavior and man-made and natural environments in order to recognize their impact on the past and present.

II-E: Describe how economic, political, cultural, and social processes interact to shape patterns of human populations, and their interdependence, cooperation, and conflict.

II-F: Describe how natural and man-made changes affect the meaning, use, distribution, and value of resources.

III-B: Identify and describe the symbols, icons, songs, traditions, and leaders of local, state, tribal, and national levels that exemplify ideals and provide continuity and a sense of community across time.

Grades 5-8:

I-A: Explore and explain how people and events have influenced the development of New Mexico up to the present day.

I-B: Analyze and interpret major eras, events and individuals from the periods of exploration and colonization through the civil war and reconstruction in United States history.

I-C: Compare and contrast major historical eras, events and figures from ancient civilizations to the age of exploration.

I-D: Research historical events and people from a variety of perspectives:

II-A: Analyze and evaluate the characteristics and purposes of geographic tools, knowledge, skills and perspectives and apply them to explain the past, present and future in terms of patterns, events and issues.

II-B: Explain the physical and human characteristics of places and use this knowledge to define regions, their relationships with other regions, and their patterns of change.

II-C: understand how human behavior impacts man-made and natural environments, recognize past and present results and predict potential changes:

II-E: Explain how economic, political, cultural and social processes interact to shape patterns of human populations and their interdependence, cooperation and conflict.

II-F: Understand the effects of interactions between human and natural systems in terms of changes in meaning, use, distribution and relative importance of resources.

III-B: Explain the significance of symbols, icons, songs, traditions and leaders of New Mexico and the United States that exemplify ideals and provide continuity and a sense of unity.

IV-C: describe the patterns of trade and exchange in early societies and civilizations and explore the extent of their continuation in today’s world.

Grades 9-12

I-A: New Mexico: analyze how people and events of New Mexico have influenced United States and world history since statehood

I-C: World: analyze and interpret the major eras and important turning points in world history from the age of enlightenment to the present, to develop an understanding of the complexity of the human experience.

I-D: Use critical thinking skills to understand and communicate perspectives of individuals, groups and societies from multiple contexts.

II-A: Analyze and evaluate the characteristics and purposes of geographic tools, knowledge, skills, and perspectives and apply them to explain the past, present and future in terms of patterns, events and issues.

II-B: Analyze natural and man-made characteristics of worldwide locales; describe regions, their interrelationships and patterns of change.

II-C: Analyze the impact of people, places and natural environments upon the past and present in terms of our ability to plan for the future.

II-D: Analyze how physical processes shape the earth’s surface patterns and biosystems

II-E: Analyze and evaluate how economic, political, cultural and social processes interact to shape patterns of human populations and their interdependence, cooperation and conflict.

II-F: Analyze and evaluate the effects of human and natural interactions in terms of changes in the meaning, use, distribution and importance of resources in order to predict our global capacity to support human activity.

III-A: Compare and analyze the structure, power and purpose of government at the local, state, tribal and national levels as set forth in their respective constitutions or governance documents.

III-B: Analyze how the symbols, icons, songs, traditions and leaders of New Mexico and the United States exemplify ideals and provide continuity and a sense of unity.

IV-B: Analyze and evaluate how economic systems impact the way individuals, households, businesses, governments and societies make decisions about resources and the production and distribution of goods and services.