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Parks & Rec Business
| Wolf Creek Environmental Education Center Cultivating love for the Earth By Demetra Mihevic Unplugging kids from their favorite electronic devices to spark their interest in a garden spider's delicate orb web glistening with dew or in a flock of geese honking taps for summer is an exhausting task. Wolf Creek Environmental Education Center in Sharon Center, Ohio (part of the Medina County Park System) makes the job easier. On the 250-acre site, students enjoy authentic learning while they participate in programs utilizing its deep-water pond, tall grass prairie, deciduous and coniferous forests, meadows, and wetlands. First Impressions Youngsters arrive at the spacious gathering room of the environmental center brimming with anticipation. But they aren't impressed with the high ceiling, the tulip tree paneling, the soaring columns of white oak, or the grand sandstone fireplace. Their eyes are riveted to a line-up of mounted animals---deer, coyote, fox, wild turkey, great horned owl---along the entrance wall. A hint of alarm flashes on a few faces, and one or two kids blurt out, "Did you kill all those animals?" The staff anticipates this question, so before outlining the day's program, a naturalist points out that the property surrounding Wolf Creek Environmental Center is a wildlife preserve, where animals are cherished and protected. The mounted specimens were donated by hunters or bought, so visitors could see animals common to Ohio and especially to Wolf Creek. After a five-minute program introduction, kids are ready to spring outdoors for the day's adventure. Fall Pond & Wetland Programming In October, these kids are generally from area science classes and visit in groups of about fifty students (grades 4-8). Their teachers rush them to Wolf Creek for a last-minute look into the pond and wetlands. During the brief introduction, a naturalist describes the procedure and reassures kids that none of the organisms they will find, from an amoeba to a largemouth bass, will ever hurt them. The students are then divided, half going to the lab and half to the pond. The group in the lab explores pond water samples for microscopic life that represents the bottom of the food chain in a pond and wetland. At each microscope, two youngsters take turns looking for the food chain in action---protozoa feeding on algae and rotifers and small crustaceans feeding on protozoa. Meanwhile, the students outside are subdivided into groups of four. Every group receives a white plastic tub in which to put larger organisms like tadpoles and snails, an ice cube tray for smaller organisms like dragonfly nymphs and diving beetles, an organism I.D. sheet (one per student), plastic spoons, and a large net. A staff person scoops up material from the bottom of the pond with the large net, and the children look through it with plastic spoons or fingers for aquatic life. After about twenty minutes, students must identify what they found, using their pond I.D. sheets. Groups compare their findings and brag about their biggest or most unusual specimens. Quieting them is like commanding twenty Dalmatian puppies to be calm at mealtime. Eventually the naturalist grabs the kids' attention and wraps up the lesson by describing the life cycle of a frog and the life histories of some common aquatic insects they found. The pond study is followed by a visit to the wetland where kids learn the vital role this ecosystem plays in a healthy environment. After about fifty minutes, the pond and lab groups change places, and the procedure is repeated. Forest Community Programming If it’s too late in the season for pond and wetland programming, the kids may enjoy our popular Forest Community program. The classes are divided into five groups of ten, each group led by a naturalist and park volunteer. Equipped with a tree poster showing the parts of a tree, a tree cookie (the cross-section of a tree showing its rings), bug boxes, and a simple dichotomous tree key (one for each student), they begin the hour-and-a-half hike. To avoid congestion at the various sites, each group follows a different path. At "The Enchanted Tree" (a live 300-year-old basswood) the naturalist uses the tree poster to describe how a tree grows and the function of each of its parts. A fun tree game reinforces this lesson. Every student is assigned a part of the tree (heartwood, xylem, phloem, cambium, leaves, roots, bark) and an action and sound to go with it. At the count of three, the tree comes "alive" as each child acts out his or her part at the same time. For example, the leaf actors call out, "We produce," while waving their arms. The roots slurp. The cambium actors twist their hips and shout, "We make new cells." And, so on. After this boisterous game no youngster will ever forget what makes up a tree! Then, using the dichotomous key, students identify six common trees found on the trail through the deciduous and coniferous forests. Along the way, the naturalist talks about producers, consumers and decomposers, while pointing out examples of each. For most kids, the best part of the hike is when bug boxes are passed out and they're let loose to turn over logs and look under leaves for worms, millipedes, centipedes, and other organisms on the forest floor. The naturalist shares how these creatures are vital to a dynamic forest community and cautions the kids to carefully return the organisms where they found them. As the hike progresses towards its natural end at the nature center, kids discover what animals inhabit the forest through the animal signs (scats, diggings, etc.) they find along the way. And, when the program is over, hopefully, the kids realize a forest is not merely a collection of trees, but rather a vibrant ecosystem where plants and animals are interrelated. Demetra Mihevic is a freelance writer, author of three books and naturalist for the Wolf Creek Environmental Education Center in Sharon Center, Ohio. She can be contacted via e-mail at jamihevic@msn.com. |
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