1. Plan a trip to a wetlands or forest area to study the flora and fauna. I live near Lake Erie where we have a wonderful dunes area containg unique plants and endangered species.
2. Several days before the walk have your students bring to school an aluminum piepan, a ziploc plastic bag, a plastic knife, and an old pair of socks that will fit over their shoes. Fill the pie pan with potting soil.
3. When you arrive at your destination, have your students put their socks on over their shoes. They will wear these as they walk.
4. At the end of your walk, have your students carefuly remove their socks and place them in their ziploc bags to take back to the classroom.
5. When you arrive back at the classroom, remove the socks from the bags and using the knife carefully scrape the organic material from them onto the potting soil in the pie pan. Water the soil and set it in a well-lighted place.
6. Observe the pie pans regularly to see if anything is growing.

We journal the entire activity, recording our observations and thoughts, even including diagrams and illustrations. In addition, we collected specimans on our walk to display in the classroom (none of the endangered species, though). What a great learning experience this was! Last year, I took my eighth-graders on this walk and they had a BLAST! We took our walk in the fall and were able to observe the migration of the monarch butterflies.

Last updated August 24, 1997