Tour Options Available
At The Ponce Inlet Light Station

Tours are available for students in the second grade and up. Groups must make advance arrangements for both guided and self-guided tours. Teachers and group leaders may select from a variety of tour topics. The content of all tours will be presented in a manner appropriate to your group's grade or age level, and all tours can include a climb to the top of the lighthouse tower. Volusia County schools are admitted free only with advance booking.

Tour options include:

Life at the 1887 Light Station

Learn about local, state and world history and the importance of the Ponce Inlet area in events from the early Spanish period through today. Why was it so important to build this lighthouse? Hear stories of the 1887 residents and compare their lives to the way we live now. Find out about how people went to school, made a living, got food, and enjoyed themselves at the early Light Station.

Navigation and the Light

Discover how the lighthouse is related to navigation, and why having a beacon here was so important. Learn about latitude, longitude and methods of early navigation. Explore 400 years of Florida shipwrecks as well as the career of underwater archaeology. Touch real artifacts from a nearby shipwreck, and find out about the famous American writer Stephen Crane who nearly died when the SS Commodore was lost off Daytona Beach.

1887 Technology and the Science of Light

This tour introduces participants to the world of 1887 and 1887 technology. Find out what technology was available to the early residents of this area. Our light tower itself is a high-tech wonder located in what was then a remote and barely inhabited area. Find out how this light station was built and what problems had to be solved to do the job. Participants will also learn some of the properties of light and exactly how the Fresnel lens works to take a small light source and project it many miles out to sea. Bend light with your bare hands (with the help of some prisms and a lens)!

Light Station Habitat

What is a habitat, and how do the characteristics of land shape its history? How did the construction of the light station change things for wildlife and people here? Explore the light station grounds, buildings and gardens while considering the natural history of this place. Find out how the keepers related to the land, the water, and the weather as you investigate how things have changed since 1887.

The Literary Lighthouse

Language arts teachers may find this the ideal place to introduce their students to literary romanticism and realism as exemplified by the writings of Frances Hopkinson Smith, a novelist and the architect who designed the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse, and Stephen Crane, the author of The Red Badge of Courage, who was shipwrecked near the Light Station and recorded his experiences in the short story "The Open Boat." Students must have read "The Open Boat" before taking this tour.

Light Station Adventure

This tour samples activities from all the above and is suitable for grades 3 to 8. The adventure takes from 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

Self-guided Tour

Are you a teacher or group leader who regularly visits us and would like to lead your own group? We are happy to accomodate you. Please make sure to bring plenty of chaperones and plan on dividing your group if you have more than 20 students. A self-guiding booklet may be downloaded from the Education section of our Web site. Self-guided tours must be booked in advance.