River Education Days!!!

This week over one thousand 4th and 5th graders traveled to Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge to take part in River Education Days. During the two-day event Wisconsin students from the La Crosse area were introduced to river resources, water safety and Leave No Trace. We were thrilled to have such a great classroom in which to talk with kids about outdoor ethics. We often use hands-on activities to help us teach people about Leave No Trace; one of our favorite teaching tools is an activity called Watch Your Step. This activity, which comes straight out of our PEAK Pack, encourages kids to think about the plants, animals, and insects can all be living in a very small area. Kids discover that what appears to be a patch of grass or a dead log is actually a mini-ecosystem. At the end of the activity we were talking with the kids about all of the living things they had discovered and a tiny garter snake slithered into our outdoor classroom and stopped briefly at our whiteboard. It was a pretty exciting moment and was the perfect ending to our “Watch Your Step” discussion.