To the editor:
Slimy tadpoles, gritty soil and smooth fossils describe just a few of the things that students got their hands on at this year’s 4th Grade Field Day. Every fourth grade student from Sprunica, Van Buren and Helmsburg elementary schools got to spend the day in Brown County State Park learning about the great outdoors.
The students were shuttled around the park to different stations where they learned about animal adaptations, soils, recycling, fossils, trees, amphibians, reptiles and archaeology. All day, you could see children’s faces light up as they discovered something new about themselves, such as successfully using an atlatl to launch a spear 20 feet in the air, like our early settlers did, or catching crawdads with their bare hands as they dart through the murky creek water.
I have fond memories of field trips like this when I was a kid. I distinctly remember the excitement of running through the woods with my classmates, looking for macro-invertebrates in the creek, and then eating a hard-earned lunch at the picnic tables. I believe all kids have an “explorer” inside of them, and what better place to inspire those qualities than nature?
Author Richard Louv says it best in “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder”: “Time in nature is not leisure time; it’s an essential investment in our children’s health (and also, by the way, in our own).”
I want to thank the Brown County Schools superintendent, teachers, staff and bus drivers for making that investment in our youth. This experience is invaluable.
Also, thanks to our sponsors: Brown County SWCD, Brown County Purdue Extension, Brown County Community Foundation, Brown County Public Library, Friends of the Brown County State Park and Brown County Eye Care.
Allison Shoaf, Brown County SWCD manager
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