Thursday, October 9, 2014

Wetland Exploration with Fancher SIxth Graders

On Tuesday (07 OCT) I spent the day exploring Mill Pond Park with three classes of 6th Grade students from Fancher Elementary.  I had previously visited each of these classes to talk about wetland habitats.  This field trip enabled the student to get a hands-on experience with something that they were learning about in class.  Each class visited the park for a little over an hour.  During that time we talked about the different zones found in wetlands(upland plants/emergant plants/floating leaf plants/submersed plants), looked at wetland soil, and searched for aquatic invertebrates.

Here are a few photos from the day.

Me explaining the zones of plant life found in a wetland

Me trying to fall down.

A big thank you to Brooke Friesen for taking the photographs of me.  Brooke is a Central Michigan University student studying environmental and outdoor education.  In her spare time she has started volunteering time with our Environmental Education Program.


The absolute best thing of the day for me was having a student tell me that, after learning about wetlands from me over the past two weeks, she thinks she wants to be a wetlands ecologist.  That is awesome...

A future wetlands ecologist holding a water scorpion


As I was photographing the reflection of the sun and clouds among some water lily leaves, a student asked what I was taking a picture of.  So I showed him.  His reaction was "cool".

The trees are starting to turn, but the water is still warm.

Students cataloging their finds.

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