An outdoor odyssey for Wingra School students

Pamela Cotant:

Students at Wingra School only needed to travel across the street for a day in the outdoors as part of its annual all-school unit called Outdoor Odyssey.

Last week, students ages 5 to 14 culminated the unit by working in multi-age teams to complete a variety of challenges throughout the UW Arboretum, across Monroe Street from the school.

The challenges, created by Wingra teachers and UW Arboretum naturalists, included identifying animal skin and bones, a scavenger hunt, identifying scat and measuring the weather with different instruments made by the students.

Wearing a matching raincoat and boots with a bug design, kindergartener Leo Langer, 5, used a trowel to dig up invasive plants under the supervision of teachers and Arboretum staff. He said it was his favorite activity so far that day.

"I learned a new way to dig out (dame's rocket) instead of just pulling stuff out with your hands," he said.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 1, 2013 1:16 AM
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