Students receive an outdoors experience
by Curt Nettinga
Hot Springs Star - October 28, 2008
Ina Muntzert, a resident of Pine Hills shares some of her collection of fossillized rocks with students from Hot Springs Elementary School Wednesday afternoon during the "Take a Child Outdoors” program. Photo by Curt Nettinga/Hot Springs Star
HOT SPRINGS – Students from the Hot Springs Elementary School had a special, end-of-the-summer treat on Wednesday, when Lucinda Schuft helped residents of Pine Hills Retirement Community and community volunteers with a special "Take a Child Outdoors" program.
"I volunteer at Pine Hills, doing interpretive programs for the residents," Schuft said. "I used to work at the area parks and so when I got e-mailed about the South Dakota Project Wild and it's Take a Child Outdoors initiative, I thought we could incorporate it into my monthly time at Pine Hills."
The program, which was held at Pine Hills, involved students in Diane Schroeder's combined 2nd and 3rd grade class as well as Jamie Neth's 3rd graders.
Six separate stations, manned by Pine Hills residents and volunteers introduced the students to the great outdoors.
One station, for instance, showed the students how rocks and stones can hold the history of the area through fossils of plants and animals imprinted on the surface. "Here, you can see this little outline of a fish on this rock," said Joe Ferro from Pine Hills. "Now why do you suppose that a fish would be imprinted on a rock here?" he asked his group of kids.
One girl in Ferro's group answered that at one time the area was covered in water. "That's right," Ferro said. "A long time ago, this was all a big lake."
"Joe and Lucinda came up with the idea," said Neth of the program. "They contacted the school and they got together with me to use some of the things we were working on at that time."
Neth said that it worked out that some of the stations covered material which the students had covered, some touched on what they were then working on, while still more is on the horizon.
"It just all worked really well," she said.
Schuft said that the volunteers from Pine Hills also seemed to be enjoying themselves a great deal. Schuft, who was coordinating the event, was pressed into service, at a station identifying mammals of the area. "I was using the Project Wild cards, with information about the mammals," she said. But, since the students were learning about changes that animals go through in preparation for the change of seasons, Schuft added information on deer losing their antlers, and animals whose fur changes color during the winter months.
Another popular learning station involved students creating a "nature bracelet" by collecting seeds, insects and other outdoor tidbits, which they stuck to a piece of masking tape on their wrist.
