Salt Springs eco-connects students

BY PAT FARNELLI

Take two buses of fourth graders and their teachers.

Add five dynamic environmental educators.

Mix with soil, trees, amphibians, insects, and some
fast moving water.

What you get: a hands-on, outdoor, multi-sensory learning experience about how every living thing connects to the soil, water and air around us.

And impressions and memories that will stick to a 9- or 10-year-old’s mind for a lifetime.

ForElkLakefourth grade teacher Bill Rezykowski, the annual trip toSaltSpringsState Parkis an inspiring, invigorating recharge for his science students and himself.

“I love this place,” Rezykowski says. “When I come here, I feel normal. There is no way you can duplicate this experience in the classroom. They are going to remember everything they learn here today, because they are getting in the water and the woods and touching and moving and connecting to this
place. This is absolutely essential to our science curriculum.”

The field trip, conducted shortly after Hurricanes Irene and Lee, began with the buses pulling into a freshly resurfaced dirt and gravel parking lot that washed out when the park flooded.

There is a tall stone marker about five feet tall, with high water marks next to it in a welcome station. The high water mark for the Lee Flood was not recorded yet, but it did surpass the 2006 flood’s mark, as well as that of Hurricane Agnes. “It was up to the top of the stone marker,” said Sandy Babuka, the watershed instructor.

Noah Atkins of Meshoppen told Babuka about his home, which had broken into three sections, and washed onto a neighbors’ property.

Back at Salt Springs, a team of volunteers spent several days with heavy equipment and hand tools doing cleanup and repairs. Several fallen trees and piles of stone rubble had detoured the smaller streams in places and created new gullies.

The students were split up into small groups, and went to various stations. They had been prepared ahead of time by two visits to their classroom by Matt Purdy, Salt Springs instructor andElkLakealumnus.

Babuka taught the kids a song to help them understand the five watersheds in which they presently stood. Her entire body gestured and flailed to demonstrate the movement of the water from one body to the next: “The Fall Brook’s connected to the Silver Creek, the Silver Creek’s connected to the Snake Creek, the Snake Creek’s connected to theSusquehanna Riverand they all flow to theChesapeake Bay.”

Next, she used tarps and a watering can to demonstrate how water flows through a landscape. A model watershed (an “enviroscape”) on a picnic table was used for a demonstration of how pollution moves from neighborhoods, industry and farms with the aid of water, and washes into streams, rivers and a lake or bay.

She explained the maxim, “We all live downstream” to emphasize the connectedness of living things, including humans, with their environment.

Jay Harter took the kids into the creek to find invertebrates and fish, which they captured with nets and buckets, then identified using provided materials. A few moments later, the children returned the “critters” to the spot where they were found.

Rebecca Lasko of the EndlessMountainsNatureCenterwas the Forestinstructor. She pointed out a tiger swallowtail caterpillar on a hickory tree. SaltSpringsState Parkis known for its old growth hemlock gorge, where wildlife, plants and fungus thrive. As the group moves into the woods, Lasko points out birds, fungi, frogs and salamanders. The children are allowed to touch and often pick up what they find, without harming the creature.
She showed them a sugar maple, whose leaves were beginning to change color. “Today is the first day of fall,” as of5 a.m.,” Lasko said.

Next, the children learn about the soil and its ingredients, as well as the decomposers that break down plant and animal material. There are a multitude of fungi on the logs, many in unexpected colors like rose and yellow or bright orange. Many marvel at the spongy, rotten wood, which they now see is breaking down into smaller fragments on its way to becoming soil.

Last, the trail takes everyone to a lookout over the series of waterfalls, which were unusually flush with rainwater. The children are flushed and unmindful of their damp boots and sneakers, with what Richard Louv calls “the glorious demeanor of a child who has spent the day in the woods.”