An Outdoor Classroom

The fourth graders at St. Regis elementary returned from a three-day long vacation last Thursday. Well, it wasn't a vacation, per say, but a vacation from the classroom. The thirteen fourth graders were up at Glacier National Park from Monday, April 26-Wednesday, April 28 for a three-day long field trip. Teacher Monica Wilson said the trip is science-based and it's one they've taken for five years now.

"It's all outdoor education pertaining to science," Wilson said.

The students, along with chaperones, stayed in cabins up at the park and spent the days filling their time doing different activities. They worked with compasses and maps, finding their way back from a spot in the woods, looked at a river aquatic and mud aquatic and explored the woods. Wilson said they did a discovery hike, studying scat and tracks of the animals living in the forest, as well as the trees and plants. Wilson said that the students loved it and that being outside of the classroom creates a whole new learning environment for the students.

"They stay more focused, they're more interested," Wilson said. "They are excited to be out there. They get to play outside, be in the dirt, it's much better versus being in the classroom."

Wilson said that the trip is also a great experience because the counselors who run and direct the programs always do such a great job. She said that most of them are majors in some field of biological sciences.

"These people know there stuff," Wilson said. "And the kids get a lot from them. It's a great program."

And while there was exploring and learning to do, the kids also made time for some fun with time around a campfire. They made smores, played games and put on skits at night. Wilson said that it's like a big family camping out. She said that while their always some minor issues, she felt that everyone got along great.

"There's a lot of teamwork activities so they have to learn to get along, but they always do really well and we're well behaved," Wilson said.

The students fundraised some of the money to go through selling raffle tickets and holding bake sales. Wilson said that while they had gone over a lot of the stuff in the classroom, and what they did over the week was a supplement of what she'd already talked about, she feels that science is not a passive activity.

"To me, science is not a passive activity, it's active. Yes, it's good to get information from the books and that's important, but it's also important to get out and do stuff. That's what scientists do," Wilson said.

She also said she feels that it's important to do things such as the trip to get kids excited about science.

"Science is all around us. Science is where we can make changes in medicine and in the Earth," Wilson said. "The kids just had such a great time and they learned so much."