Students enjoy outdoor themed camps

HOT SPRINGS – Students practiced their casts, worked on making fishing flies and learned about nature in a series of camps held at Hot Springs High School last week.

From Monday, June 23- Wednesday, June 25, students attended the class camps learning a few skills for the summer season, when outdoor activities are in full swing throughout the region.

The mornings of the three day camp were spent at a forestry/science session with Alisha Pablo and several other teachers who worked with participating students.

The camp covered the principles of fire safety, while also discussing the role of animals and plants in a healthy ecosystem.

The course used games and fun activities, including a tinker tree derby and an exercise where students and teachers created a large web of life with each other in the school’s library.

“The students had a blast this week,” Alisha Pablo, third grade teacher at Hot Springs Elementary said.

Pablo noted the students particularly enjoyed the tinker tree derby, where they were able to go out on the bleachers and light their tinker trees to see first hand how forest fires can start.

As part of the forestry and science camp the local students also took time to learn about the different types of wildfires, which can affect the wilderness in regions around northwestern Montana.

Ground fires, midlevel fires, crown fires and surface fires were all covered, including how conditions affect forest fires and how forest fires impact the larger environmental ecosystem.

The impact of forest fires on other organisms found in the wilderness also formed a part of the web of life activity, as students learned the various ways wildfires impact a variety of living things in the ecosystem, while also learning how some organisms have adapted to deal with the seasonal threat of wild fires.

The web of life activity also focused on the role decomposers, such as mushrooms and other fungi play in maintaining a healthy forest, and the integral part each creature plays in maintaining a healthy wildlife region.

The teachers made sure to keep things fun and the students seemed to thoroughly enjoy the activities they participated in throughout the week.

In the afternoon of the week campers turned their attention to picking up a few fly-fishing skills with the help of Superintendent Kevin Meredith, and school Athletic Director Chris Clairmont.

The students split time between learning techniques for making their own fishing flies and practicing the art of the fly-fishing cast over the three days of the summer workshop.

“The students got to build their own flies, and I was impressed with how well they picked it up,” Meredith said.

Students used elk hair, synthetic material and hackle from chickens to make their handmade fly baits.

The camp utilized the National Fishing in Schools Program, and also focused on insect identification techniques.

The week’s program was for elementary students, but junior high and high school students will have their own opportunity to pick up some fly-fishing skills in a camp to be held from Monday, July 14 to Wednesday, July 16.

As part of this camp session, participating students will head out to the 14-mile bridge on the Clark Fork River to practice some of the fly-fishing techniques they learned earlier in the week.