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Outdoor Classroom Adds Natural Dimension
to Education Experience
It was a “thumbs up” day according to 60 Blue Ridge Middle School fifth and sixth grade students who participated Oct. 21 in one of the first, organized experiential outdoor lessons in cooperation with the White Mountain Nature Center.
This event was a nature hike from the Porter Mountain Road campus to Scott Reservoir, an irrigation impoundment on Porter Creek, built in 1928. With its unimproved and natural surroundings, this least developed of the "in town" lakes is an ideal urban nature preserve for exploration.
The central tool for this activity was the newly produced Field Guide to Woodland Park donated to the school through the Center’s “Help Our Area Teachers" program. The Pinetop Lion’s Club, and the White Mountain Women’s Club very generously provided field guides for the students, who were tasked to seek, observe, and document any of 128 examples of trees, shrubs, cacti, mushrooms, plants, aquatic and streamside plants, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, fish and crustacean, water insects, butterflies and moths, other insects, water birds, soaring birds/raptors/owls, and birds.
Working in small teams of five or six and an adult chaperone, students were challenged to use binoculars, loaned by White Mountain Audubon Society, and their senses to spot species, verify specimens, take notes and photos, and draw their findings in field note pages. They also were asked to consider impacts on wildlife, humans and the watershed.
As the first in a series of activities, students will be able to take their observations and formulate hypotheses and gather data, said Nature Center Executive Director Norris Dodd, who helped lead the outing. BRMS teachers and Nature Center advisors Gil Alvidrez and Susie Jackson devised curriculum elements for instruction, incorporating state education standards. The hands-on activities will increasingly incorporate science, math, language arts and social studies practices, but in an outdoor classroom, according to Alvidrez.
At the conclusion of the daylong outing, Alvidrez reminded the students they were charged with “being scientists, observing and asking questions.” Recounting the most interesting observations, students piped up with: “the lush meadow”, “finding four kinds of wasps”, “seeing lichen” and “seeing a fox across the lake”.
Tallying their observations on the field guide, student groups were awarded Nature Center lunch bags for the most species observed and the best field notes, according to Jackson.
Dodd summarized the session, noting it was late in the season to be observing wildlife and plants, “but by observing, we can see the animals and signs of their activity, and appreciate that they are here and what is in their habitat.” The documentation from this session can be compared to observations and differences in the spring, Alvidrez added.
The program is being packaged for other grade levels and campuses for exploration in nature that meets state curriculum standards, said Alvidrez.
Chaperones supporting the outing came from TRACKS, the United States Forest Service, medical professionals, and parents.
For further information about the Nature Center and the Help Our Area Teachers program, go to wmnature.org Classroom field guides can be purchased through the Nature Center for $10 and designated for any specific teacher/classroom. The staff at the center will deliver the field guides to the teachers, or you may send a tax-deductible check to: WMNC, PO Box 581, Pinetop, AZ 85935-0581.
The Nature Center is located at 425 S. Woodland Road in Pinetop-Lakeside, between Big Springs Environmental Study Area and Mountain Meadow Recreation Complex.
Additional information on the Nature Center, its complete schedule of programs, and the online Nature Store are available at www.wmnature.org or call 928-367-5675.
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