Notes from the Field Station: Local Second-Graders Have Field Day
Posted on Thursday, June 2, 2011
Spring rains translate as pent up energy just waiting to be released in the outdoors. That is what happened when 100 second-grade students from Wilmington Elementary School descended in three yellow buses on the Field Station for a field day May 20.
Their collective energies were spread around outside and inside the Nature Center. They walked, ran, rolled in the grass, got ink on their fingers and, most important, learned about nature directly from nature.
They were divided into five groups and scheduled for the day's adventures. The activities included scavenger hunts, solar energy cars, art from leaf prints, how and what birds feed on, growth rings in trees and measurements of trees in a small forest. Teachers, parents, Westminster faculty/staff/students helped guide the energetic kids, all the while being extremely thankful that the day was blessed with sunshine rather than the ever-present rain of the past weeks.
Children are creatures of experience. They learn nature best by being there amid plants, animals, streams, trails, dirt and sunshine. They have fantastic imagination and creativity. They are our future as caretakers of this planet. And they represent a significant part of the mission of Westminster's Field Station.
The day's activities were coordinated and guided by Dr. Helen Boylan Funari, associate professor of chemistry, with cooperation of Westminster faculty, Field Station staff, the Drinko Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Science in Motion, Sustainability in Motion and, of course, the teachers and parents of Wilmington Elementary School. Whoever arranged the weather deserves an A grade!
After several rounds of activity, the children (and staff too) were ready for lunch outdoors. Bagged lunches are best while sitting on the ground and eaten with fingers that had recently held a leaf or touched a rock. Play followed until the second round of activities . . . and then the buses came to retrieve their precious cargo. Some children had to be coaxed to board the bus. As the yellow machines tooled away, children waved with promises to return and continue their adventures.
Clarence Harms, Director
Field Station
724-946-6001
harmsc@westminster.edu
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