Over the first week and a half of working out here at the DBOC, I have made what I believe to be a very important piece of information. The schools that come out to SNR have a very different idea about how to learn about outdoor education. Only one of the schools seemed to have any idea of what was going on around the area. Funnily enough, it was the second graders. The 5th and 8th graders couldn’t care less about what was happening here. their interest was finally peaked when we actually took part in the classes. I helped teach pond to both the second graders, and as far as I could tell, the 2nd graders knew more than the 8th graders did! I found this interesting as I noted that the 2nd graders came from a school that seemed to be similar to TFS in the younger grades. It was not however a Montessori school.
After the two pond classes I have helped with, I do believe that I would be able to co-teach one of these classes.
As a side note, I have also been researching information for an pair of interpretive trails that will be built around the area. One will pass near a small pond that only shows up when we have had intense rain (like in the past week), and the other will go through the wooded area behind the cabins.
The trail by the pond will be an animal focused trail, with information about beavers, woodpeckers, deer, frogs and other local animals. The other trail will be plant based with information relating to native trees and medicinal plants in the area that we will try to locate. Due to the interests of my supervisor, It will also have an area that is devoted to mushrooms. Mainly morels during the spring and other more common fungi during the summer and fall.
My afternoon of yesterday consisted of me doing an activity which I normally going out of my way to avoid. Gardening. I helped transplant some plants from areas where they were doing maintenance on the trails, and the most interesting plants were probably the may-apples, which are very interesting, umbrella like plants.
I can say with great confidence that I greatly enjoy what I am doing out here.