Green-Wood is a permanent residence for more than 5,000 Civil War soldiers and tens of thousands more who experienced the war as civilians, nurses, abolitionists, and more. Travel on our historical trolley to some of their gravesites. Learn how the Civil War was a catalyst for change in New York and consider how we can remember the roles that Green-Wood’s permanent residents played in this pivotal era.

Starting Location: Main Entrance

Explore the colors, shapes, composition and more in the iconic stained glass windows that adorn Green-Wood's stately mausoleums, chapel and other buildings. Designed by masters of the art form, including Louis Comfort Tiffany, Otto Heinigke, and Helen Maitland Armstrong, this program sheds new light on why and how stained glass is such an important aspect of funerary art.

Green-Wood's landscape preserves some of the original topography of Brooklyn as it looked 18,000 when the Wisconsin Glacier hit its terminal moraine across the middle of the cemetery and began to recede. In this program, students learn about to spot signs of the glacier's spread and how it affected the land as they stand atop the highest natural point in Brooklyn, walk the moraine's border, and find boulders the glacier pushed across Green-Wood's grounds. As the explore, students begin to make connections between natural climate change thousands of years ago and human-caused climate change today. This program can start at any of Green-Wood's four entrances. Please indicate your preference at the time of booking.

Learn about igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rock through Green-Wood’s 200,000+ grave monuments. Learn why some look ancient even when they are not, and why others look new when they are really hundreds of years old. Students will collect data on weathering, and learn about the history and environmental toll of rock quarrying.

This program can start at any of Green-Wood's four entrances. Please indicate your starting point of choice when you book.

Students learn where to find and how to safely interact with insects and other arthropods that live at Green-Wood, from introduced invasive insects to predatory insectivores to true bugs. As they explore, students consider insects varied roles in the ecosystem.

This program can start at any of Green-Wood's four entrances. Please indicate your preference at the time of booking.
This program can start at any of Green-Wood's four entrances. Please indicate your preference at the time of booking.

Students will explore Green-Wood’s Level III Accredited arboretum to learn about how trees cool cities, the challenges trees face in different urban environments, and how trees create habitat for wildlife.

Starting location: Gothic Arch at Green-Wood's Main Entrance at 500 25th st. and 5th Avenue

Through structured observation in Green-Wood’s featured wildflower meadow and close up inspection of pollination in action, students learn the process of pollination and its importance to life on earth, plant adaptations that attract pollinators, and habitat needs of pollinators. A special fall activity includes wildflower seed collection and processing.

Starting Location: Main Entrance, Prospect Park West Entrance, Fort Hamilton Parkway Entrance, or 34th Street Entrance. Please indicate your preferred starting location at the time of booking.

Green-Wood is a sanctuary for more than 125 local and migrating bird species. Students will: observe birds among the monuments, in the grass, trees, and ponds; learn to identify common city birds; and collect data on the different ways birds communicate and survive.

Starting Location: Main Entrance, Prospect Park West Entrance, Fort Hamilton Parkway Entrance, or 34th Street Entrance. Please indicate your preferred starting location at the time of booking.

Young birders meet some of the 125+ bird species that frequent Green-Wood, including common city birds and rare migraters. Through guided observation, students learn basic field marks, how external anatomical features differ from bird to bird, and how birds communicate, survive, and thrive in an urban green space.

Starting Location: Main Entrance, Prospect Park West Entrance, Fort Hamilton Parkway Entrance, or 34th Street Entrance. Please indicate your preferred starting location at the time of booking.

As the highest-accredited arboretum in New York City, Green-Wood is the perfect place for young learners to study what makes a tree a tree. In this program, students will use their senses to observe Green-Wood’s most unique, biggest, oldest, and storied trees. This interactive tour also features drawing and collecting natural materials found at Green-Wood.

Starting Location: Main Entrance

How do we remember the American Revolution today? What was it like for those who lived through it? Ride our historic trolley to explore this era through the lives and legacies of Green-Wood’s permanent residents. Students will visit the gravesites of revolutionaries from this era who participated in some of the war’s most important events.

Starting Location: Main Entrance or Prospect Park West Entrance. Please indicate your preferred Brooklyn is remembered today.
starting location at the time of booking.

How should we memorialize a battle we lost in a war that we won? In this program, students march to the top of Battle Hill: the highest natural point in Brooklyn and one of the sites of the first pitched battle of the American Revolution, fought in 1776. When they reach the top,
students study the monument Minerva and the Altar to Liberty and explore how the Battle of Starting Location: Main Entrance or Prospect Park West Entrance. Please indicate your preferred Brooklyn is remembered today.
starting location at the time of booking.

Ride our historic trolley to explore the lives and legacies of people who changed the world. Visit the monuments of some of the visionaries interred at Green-Wood and discover their impact on American social and political movements, technology, and culture.

Starting Location: Main Entrance, Prospect Park West Entrance, Fort Hamilton Parkway Entrance, or 34th Street Entrance. Please indicate your preferred starting location at the time of booking.

Ride our historic trolley to explore the lives and legacies of women who both defied and embodied the times in which they lived: suffragists, spiritualists, actresses, authors, activists, and more. Participants will visit multiple monuments to discover how these women made their mark- and consider how they are memorialized today.

Starting Location: Main Entrance, Prospect Park West Entrance, Fort Hamilton Parkway Entrance, or 34th Street Entrance. Please indicate your preferred starting location at the time of booking.

Ride our historic trolley to visit the monuments of immigrants who left a mark on their new home as artists, entrepreneurs, and community-builders. Participants will explore the history of immigration to New York while making past-present connections through topics such as food, holidays, language, and more.
Starting Location: Main Entrance, Prospect Park West Entrance, Fort Hamilton Parkway Entrance, or 34th Street Entrance. Please indicate your preferred starting location at the time of booking.

Green-Wood is a permanent residence for more than 5,000 Civil War soldiers and tens of thousands more who experienced the war as civilians, nurses, abolitionists, and more. Travel on our historical trolley to some of their gravesites. Learn how the Civil War was a catalyst for change in New York and consider how we can remember the roles that Green-Wood’s permanent residents played in this pivotal era.

Starting Location: Main Entrance, Prospect Park West Entrance, Fort Hamilton Parkway Entrance, or 34th Street Entrance. Please indicate your preferred starting location at the time of booking.

Ride our historic trolley to visit the monuments of both famous and unknown historical figures who identified (or would identify today) as part of the LGBTQ community. Explore their fascinating stories, see how they are memorialized at Green-Wood, and consider how their gender expression and sexuality impacted their lives and legacies.

Starting Location: Main Entrance, Prospect Park West Entrance, Fort Hamilton Parkway Entrance, or 34th Street Entrance. Please indicate your preferred starting location at the time of booking.

Explore the history and legacy of World War II through the lives of Green-Wood’s permanent residents. Students will travel on our historic trolley to visit the gravesites of several fascinating figures and consider what their experiences- as soldiers and sailors, as well as scientists, nurses, journalists, activists, and “Rosies”- can teach us about the war abroad and its impacts at home.
Starting Location: Main Entrance, Prospect Park West Entrance, Fort Hamilton Parkway Entrance, or 34th Street Entrance. Please indicate your preferred starting location at the time of booking.

In this program, students visit the monuments of both famous and unknown historical figures who identified (or would today) as part of the LGBTQ Community. Explore their fascinating stories, see how they are memorialized at Green-Wood, and consider how gender expression and sexuality impacted their lives and legacies.

Starting Location: Fort Hamilton Parkway Entrance

As New-York’s first premier cemetery, Green-Wood is the permanent home to thousands of people who changed the world over the past four centuries. In this program, students will visit the monuments of some of the visionaries interred here and discover their impact on American social and political movements, technology, and culture. They will also compare these changemakers’ achievements in life to how they are memorialized in death.

Starting Location: Main Entrance, Prospect Park West Entrance, or Fort Hamilton Parkway Entrance. Please indicate your preferred starting location at the time of booking.

Explore the lives and legacies of women interred at Green-Wood who both defied and embodied the times in which they lived: suffragists, spiritualists, artists, actors, authors, activists, and more. In this program, students will visit multiple monuments to discover how these women made their mark- and consider how they are memorialized today.

Starting Location: Fort Hamilton Parkway Entrance.

In this program, students visit the monuments of immigrants interred at Green-Wood who left a mark on their new home as artists, entrepreneurs, and community-builders. Participants will explore the history of immigration to New York while making past-present connections through topics such as food, holidays, language, and more.

Starting Location: Main Entrance or Prospect Park West Entrance. Please indicate your preferred starting location at the time of booking.

Ride our historical trolley to discover the lives and work of fascinating Black New Yorkers who are interred at Green-Wood: doctors, artists, activists, and more. While visiting their monuments, students consider: What do their lives and experiences tell us about the times in which they Ride our historical trolley to d discover the lives and work of fascinating Black New Yorkers who lived? How are they memorialized?

Starting Location: Main Entrance, Prospect Park West Entrance, Fort Hamilton Parkway Entrance, or 34 Street Entrance. Please indicate your preferred starting location at the time of booking.

In this program, students discover the lives and work of fascinating Black New Yorkers who are interred at Green-Wood: doctors, artists, activists, and more. While visiting their monuments, students consider: what do their lives and experiences tell us about the times in which they lived? How are they memorialized?

Starting Location: Fort Hamilton Parkway entrance.

In this program, students become cemetery sleuths. They learn how anchors aren’t just for sailors, how to identify those who belonged to special societies, and other secrets carved in stone. Participants will explore the cemetery and search for symbols on a scavenger hunt, before designing their very own symbol.

Starting Location: Main Entrance, Prospect Park West Entrance, Fort Hamilton Parkway Entrance, or 34th Street Street Entrance. Please indicate your preferred starting location at the time of booking.

As a city of the dead, Green-Wood is full of stunning structures built to show off architects’ skills, communicate wealth, power, and identity, and most importantly, be places to reside.... forever. In this program, students study and sketch masterpieces of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century architecture at Green-Wood while learning to identify common styles that appear not only in Green-Wood, but all over their city.

Starting Location: Main Entrance, Prospect Park West Entrance, or Fort Hamilton Parkway Entrance. Please indicate your preferred starting location at the time of booking.

Ride our historic trolley to discover how cemeteries are like miniature cities, full of unique architectural wonders. Participants will study and sketch masterpieces of nineteenth- and early- twentieth-century architecture at Green-Wood. Through our wide array of structures, students will learn to identify popular styles from these eras, and put their newly-gained skills to the test during a scavenger hunt!

Starting Location: Main Entrance, Prospect Park West Entrance, Fort Hamilton Parkway Entrance, or 34th Street Entrance. Please indicate your preferred starting location at the time of booking.

In this program, students visit the cemetery’s most unique, elaborate, and expressive memorials to learn how people’s lives are celebrated through public art. See larger than life firemen, ships and rope carved in stone, and even a giant baseball. Students will practice close-looking and storytelling, while considering how we can publicly honor community heroes.

Starting Location: Main Entrance, Prospect Park West Entrance, Fort Hamilton Parkway Entrance, or 34th Street Entrance. Please indicate your preferred starting location at the time of booking.

If you are interested in a program theme not listed above, or wish to customize any of the above programs, Green-Wood’s director of education, Rachel Walman, would be happy to work with you! Please contact education@green-wood.com. Custom program pricing will be determined based on length and content of the program.

If you are interested in a program theme not listed above, or wish to customize any of the above programs, Green-Wood’s director of education, Rachel Walman, would be happy to work with you! Please contact education@green-wood.com. Custom program pricing will be determined based on length and content of the program.