Mort- a garter snake makes new friends |
Discover Nature Schools is a curriculum designed by the Missouri Department of Conservation to bring the understanding of nature and its ecosystems to students from 3rd grade to high school. Our emphasis with 5th graders includes specialized structures (thorns, stingers, wings etc.) and discovering the relationships of plants and animals in an ecosystem. Teachers educate the students in the class room and our role is to reinforce this with hands on experience.
One of the neat things about these field trips is how much it forces us to think about the associations. Nothing like the third in a string of "whys" to get you to thinking, especially when you are expected to know the answers!
For more information, see Francis Skalicky's Springfield News-Leader article.