About Caledonia Conservancy's "School to Nature"
Caledonia Conservancy is fully engaged in the second full year of our School to Nature program. Sixth graders from McKinley, Starbuck, and Gilmore Middle School are bused to Tabor Woods, one of Caledonia Conservancy’s preserved properties, for the Spring School to Nature program. While they are there, they will go on a nature hike to learn about the spring flowers and how to identify the trees by the color and texture of their bark. They then fill in a worksheet based on the Department of Public Instruction Learning Tree curriculum called “Life in a Fallen Log.” They need to take measurements of their log, collect bugs that live on the log, draw the plants that are on the decaying log, and try to figure out how their log died and how long ago it happened.
We have a group of volunteers that are trained to lead the hikes. We try to have one adult volunteer for each 5 students. This year, we will be having over 390 students participate over seven days from the three schools. We have a 5 member committee that oversees the program and organizes the field trips. Each student and teacher fills in an evaluation sheet about the trip and last year the results were extremely positive. It is so important in this age of video games, cell phones, and internet use to try to reconnect our children to the outdoors. The School to Nature program is the Caledonia Conservancy’s way of making that connection.
 |
| School to Nature Trout Ponds Prairie Oct., 2011 |
 |
| School to Nature - Tabor Woods |
 |
| School to Nature Gifford 4th Graders visit Trout Ponds/Prairie |
 |
| School to Nature 2 |
 |
| School To Nature May 2010 |
Other Helpful Links:.
Project Learning Tree: www.plt.org
DNR Enviromental Education for Kids http://www.dnr.wi.gov/eek/
Recent Photos from School to Nature Programs: