WHITE -- White Township seventh- and eighth-grade science students are blazing new trails this fall with outdoor learning excursions to sites around the county. Students began taking the all-day field trips in September as part of a new "Trailblazers" program, developed by science teacher Henry Skirbst.
"One of my motivations for doing Trailblazers was to regain the 'wow' factor with students," Skirbst said. "I found years ago that technology would provide the wow factor. Now, students spend so much time with technology and so little time outdoors that learning outdoors is a novelty and makes them get enthusiastic."
Skirbst began working on Trailblazers in the spring and gained school board approval for the program in the summer. The board agreed to pick up the $1,800 cost for busing. The idea, Skirbst said, is for students to have hands-on outdoor learning experiences that focus on this year's curriculum. The program integrates multiple topics such as earth science, chemistry, biology and physics, as well as cross curricular studies like social studies, art, physical education, language arts and mathematics.
Groups of students visit six sites in the county over a six-week period from Sept. 21 through Oct. 26. About 25 students go on each trip. Skirbst sends notices home to parent before the trips describing the outings. Some include minimal hiking on flat land, while others have steep climbs and hiking for long periods of time. The next day, students share their experiences with classmates in school via power point presentations with photographs and notes taken on the outings.
"There's so much right here in our own county that ties into the curriculum," Skirbst said. "I thought it would instill a greater awareness of their own county and make the learning more meaningful and relevant for the students. This whole series will provide a hook for the rest of the school year."
Students will study minerals at the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area; rocks at Worthington State Forest, the area once being considered for construction of the Tock's Island Dam; fossils at White Lake Wildlife Management Area; glacial geology at Jenny Jump State Park; plate tectonics at Mount Tamany; and natural resources at Pequest Natural Resource Education Center. The study culminates next spring with a full-day ecological study for all the students at Merrill Creek Reservoir and Environmental Preserve. Each of the 130 students in the program also received T-shirts with a Trailblazer logo at no cost.
At Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, students learned about copper mines, history and archeology of the area and Indians that settled the site from Ranger John Wright; and saw snake skins and live bats. They also measured the dip or angle in rocks with clinometers and strike or geographic coordinates with a compass. Skirbst said the trip gave students the opportunity to see mineral formation out in the field.
"I found the mines very interesting. There were huge rocks that were slanted on an angle... They were different patterns," explained seventh-grader James Ritchie, who went on the first trip. "They spent millions of dollars mining the copper mines, but they only got $15 worth of copper from it."
Seventh-grader Rachel Wigham liked being outdoors, but admitted some things were creepy -- like the red cricket bugs that kept jumping out at the kids, snake skins from venomous snakes and bats hanging in the caves.
"It was really nice. Usually, when you're in school, you feel kind of tense, but out there, you're relaxed and you smell the fresh air," Wigham said. "If you know about the past, you'll understand it and take care of it better."
Students unanimously agreed they remember information they learned on the Trailblazer outings better than if they had been reading about it in a text book.
"It was cool that we weren't studying it out of a book -- we were actually there to see what they were talking about," said seventh-grader Alison Bancroft. "You can remember going out and seeing everything. You remember the material you learn much better."