Book a class
We’re excited to welcome students in preschool through 12th grade for classes at the Seattle Aquarium!
Our educators will guide you and up to 32 of your students at a time through lessons that support Next Generation Science Standards while providing students with the agency to influence the class based on their prior knowledge and interests.
On-site classes are reserved for student/teacher groups with a minimum of 10 students and are not available for homeschool groups. We understand that school groups usually have a finite amount of time to spend at the Aquarium. If your priority is seeing the Ocean Pavilion or you are traveling more than 45 minutes from your school to the Aquarium, please consider booking a self-guided visit instead of an on-site class so your entire field trip can be dedicated to exploring the Aquarium. We are unable to offer distance learning classes at this time.
Please see the “2025–26 availability and capacity changes” section below for details about our current availability.
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About our on-site classes
On-site classes take place in our classrooms here at the Seattle Aquarium as part of a field trip. All programs are 60 minutes long (except Tide Pool Friends for preschoolers, which is 30 minutes). Admission to the full Seattle Aquarium campus—including our new Ocean Pavilion—is included.
The schedule is designed to ensure everyone’s experience is as pleasant as possible and to minimize overcrowding. Groups are expected to arrive at their designated entry time. Late arrivals may not be accommodated due to the tight scheduling of groups. Teachers are responsible for relaying exact arrival details to their bus drivers and are expected to account for travel when selecting their entry time.
Our classrooms are located on the second floor of Pier 59. Groups arriving less than an hour before their program start time are required to enter Pier 59 first and will NOT be permitted to visit the Ocean Pavilion before their class. This policy is intended to make sure groups are in the right place and ready to begin their programs on time.
After booking your program, you will receive more information to help your students prepare for a visit to the Aquarium and their exciting class. Please read all correspondence from registration@seattleaquarium.org carefully as we try to cover everything you need to know about what to expect from your field trip. Still have questions? Please visit our school group FAQ.
2025–26 availability and capacity changes
General access to our 2026 field trip availability is now open to all schools! On-site classes can be requested between 10am and 2pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, February 10–May 29, 2026. We are NOT able to offer two concurrent classroom programs at this time. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.
Bookings are now open to all public and private schools (pre-K through 12th grade), whether they are located in King County or elsewhere.
Please do not contact the Registration team to ask about your specific field trip date. We receive an extremely high volume of inquiries, so we do not have capacity to answer individual visit requests. Instead, please refer to our convenient live calendar of availability for when future dates become available.
On-site classes are not available during the summer break months of June to September. Information about when 2026–27 school year bookings open will be posted to our website as soon as it’s available. You can receive updates about registration and other news for educators by signing up for our Seattle Aquarium mailing list and checking the “educator newsletter” box.
What is general access registration?
For the first few months of 2026 bookings being open, we granted early access only to public schools in King County and Tribal schools in Washington State.
By providing early access to our local audience, we offered greater accessibility to schools that may not otherwise have been able to participate in our programming. In a time of limited staff and resources, this meant reassessing previous programming models to both design a more sustainable capacity load for our education team, while also improving the services we provide for the communities we are part of.
We are so grateful for the flexibility and understanding of our school partners outside of this early access window. Now, we welcome all school groups to begin scheduling classes through May 2026.
Before you book...
Effective September 2025 (ongoing): Please be aware that educators in multiple school districts have encountered an error message when trying to access our booking calendar, which is hosted by the third-party service You Can Book Me. This ongoing issue seems to be caused by school districts soft-blocking access to You Can Book Me on their secure networks.
As a workaround, we recommend accessing the booking calendars from a personal device not connected to your school’s network (such as a mobile phone or home computer). We apologize for any inconvenience. If you’re unable to get through to our calendar and booking form after trying on a different/personal device, please contact our Registration team at registration@seattleaquarium.org for support.
We understand that educators undertake a lot of preparation when planning field trips. Here is our suggested checklist of information to have ready BEFORE you view our calendar and submit your visit request:
At least two preferred dates and entry times for your group (in case your first choice isn’t available). Please note that program start times are separate from entry times. Plan to arrive at the Aquarium no later than 15 minutes before your program start time!
The highest possible student attendance your group may reach. (Please note we have a capacity of 32 students and 10 chaperones per class program.)
We require a ratio of one adult for every five students (1:5) for preschool through eighth grade, and one chaperone per 10 students (1:10) for grades 9–12. Groups without sufficient adult supervision may not be admitted, so please plan to confirm a minimum number of chaperones that meets our ratio requirement.
Does your group have any students with special needs or additional accessibility considerations? Seattle Aquarium may be able to provide some support. Let us know in the “accommodations” section of the form.
Are you the day-of-visit teacher or contact who will be attending this field trip to Seattle Aquarium? If you are booking on behalf of someone else or don’t know for sure whether you’ll be joining, please prepare a secondary contact who WILL be attending the field trip so we can make sure they also receive important details like parking and lunch areas.
If you’re interested in applying for our free admission and bus reimbursement scholarships, please read our pricing and scholarship information for details about qualifying criteria. King County schools, please check 4Culture’s website to see if your transportation can be covered by 4Culture instead of Seattle Aquarium.
Preview our Field Trip Code of Conduct and School Group FAQ so you’re aware of details such as where buses can unload, where to eat lunch and behavioral expectations for both students and chaperones.
2026 winter/spring class descriptions
Pre-K through Kindergarten
Tide Pool Friends
Meet different Puget Sound seashore animals during this interactive class. Through discussion, movement and song, students will learn fun facts about marine life and habitats while reviewing colors and numbers. Explore even more during the free-choice activity time that includes a live animal station, magnet board and puppet play, a reading and puzzle corner, and a letter-matching activity. This introductory marine science program is perfect for preschools, Head Start classes, day care centers and other groups of young children.
K–Grade 2
Pacific Northwest Tide Pool Stewardship
Get up close with live tide pool animals. Through the use of biological artifacts like shells, live animals and observation, students will learn how these animals survive in their ever-changing habitats and how simple actions can help protect them. Learn about invertebrates like hermit crabs, sea urchins and snails, and discover how they have adapted to survive in the intertidal zone. We can all be stewards of the marine environment!
Grades 3–5
Puget Sound Plankton Lab
Discover the most abundant organisms in Puget Sound: plankton! Students will learn about the role plankton play in providing food for all animals as the base of the marine food web. Participants will be guided through a plankton exploration—using a water sample they collect themselves with a special net from under the Aquarium’s pier—using a real microscope.
*Students should dress for the elements since portions of this program take place outside on the Aquarium’s pier. Plankton samples differ with changing water temperatures and the time of year of the visit.
Grades 6–8
Sea Otters and Community
Sea otters are a keystone species, dwelling in the kelp forests in the Pacific Northwest, but they’ve had a difficult past. Students will learn about the historical distribution of local sea otter populations and how they contribute to the ocean community. They’ll also discover the amazing adaptations that are unique to sea otters among marine mammals.
Grades 9–12
Conservation Research
Find out what it takes to conduct research that contributes to the conservation, management and restoration of our marine environment. Through past and current Seattle Aquarium research projects, students will learn the scientific process and be introduced to various research techniques. Seattle Aquarium scientists will be featured so students can see that pursuing a future in science is attainable.
Pricing and scholarships
Please note: As of January 2025, our on-site class ticket rates have increased. Student tickets are now $20 per student and chaperone tickets are $15 per adult.
Washington state schools with 40% or more free/reduced lunch participants, ESL/ELL students, special education classes and/or ECEAPs can apply for our field trip scholarships. Approved scholarship groups receive paid Aquarium admission and programming and may also apply for a transportation reimbursement (as available) of up to $400 per bus rented to bring your students on their field trip. Transportation reimbursements are not guaranteed to scholarship groups and are awarded on a first-come-first-serve basis.
The admission scholarship application and bus reimbursement form will be emailed to the address you provide. A school/office administrator's signature will also be required to confirm eligibility. This form will arrive via a separate email through the third-party service DocuSign. It should automatically be sent to your office administrator after you complete and sign your sections.
As available, we will reimburse up to $400 per bus with no cap on the number of buses used (within reason). Bus reimbursement scholarships are available on a limited basis through the end of 2025. All schools who apply for free admission may apply for bus reimbursement as well, but please be aware this is a separate scholarship award and is not guaranteed. Schools who indicate an interest in this scholarship will be contacted by our Registration team for more details about receiving the award. If approved to apply, this form will arrive via a separate email through DocuSign after your visit.
Aides required and accompanied by students with disabilities can enter the Aquarium free of charge even if the rest of the group doesn’t qualify for a scholarship. If applicable, please let the Registration team know in your visit request form how many 1:1 aides you are requesting comp tickets for.
Bus reimbursement scholarship update
Due to funding constraints, we have reached the limit of how many of these scholarships we can provide. This means we will not be able to provide any bus reimbursement funding for spring 2026 field trips requested after January 29, 2026.
Free programming/admission scholarships are NOT impacted by this funding limitation. Your school may still qualify to receive free admission if you meet our qualifying criteria and submit a correctly completed scholarship application. However, we know the lack of bus funding will impact some schools’ ability to travel to the Seattle Aquarium and apologize for any disappointment.
If you do not know prior to submitting your visit request whether you’ll be unable to visit without bus funding, we can book a field trip for you now and cancel it later if circumstances prevent you from coming. We ask for at least two weeks’ notice for cancellation if possible.
Thanks for your flexibility and understanding. Whether we can see you for a field trip this year or not, we are grateful to all our educational partners for your desire to support our mission of Inspiring Conservation of Our Marine Environment.
For King County public schools only: Your bus transportation could be covered by 4Culture’s Curiosity Pass! Check out the 4Culture website for more information. If you are within one of the eligible districts, please contact your school district to learn more about how 4Culture may be available for bus reimbursement. Please note that schools listed as being eligible for coverage by 4Culture aren’t necessarily guaranteed funding.
Again, the same statement applies for schools who can potentially be covered by 4Culture: If you do not know prior to submitting your visit request whether you’ll be unable to visit without bus funding, we can book a field trip for you now and cancel it later.
We acknowledge that it is difficult to plan a field trip without the certainty of bus funding. If you would prefer to explore other field trip opportunities this school year, we understand and apologize for any disappointment.
Contact us
Questions can be directed to our Registration office at registration@seattleaquarium.org or (206) 693-6196. Please note that we continue to experience a high volume of incoming inquiries, so it may take at least five business days for you to receive a response to any emails/voicemails. Our office hours are 8am–5pm Pacific, Monday–Friday.
Thank you!
