“What is the texture of the bark of a ponderosa pine?”
“Are the needles separate or clumped?”
“What is a deciduous tree?”
“Is the moon waxing or waning right now?”
Carol Taylor, a seventh-grade science teacher at Heritage Christian Academy in Bothell, asks her students lots of questions during a typical school day. Most of these questions can be answered in a book. Sept. 10-11 were not typical school days for these students, however. They didn’t need to turn to page 417 to find the answers — they just had to look up and observe the nature surrounding them nearly 120 miles from their usual Bothell classrooms.
Accompanied by Taylor, her husband, Charlie, and myself, the seventh-grade class explored the Swauk Forest Discovery Trail at Blewett Pass Friday morning, approximately 25 miles south of Leavenworth as part of a unit on ecosystems. Students and chaperones arrived at a campsite nearly four miles away on Thursday afternoon and set up the camp for the rest of the evening.
On Friday morning, students arose with the sunrise to prepare for the three-mile hike. Guided by the Taylors, the students (and I) learned a great deal about forests. We learned that dwarf mistletoe, or “witches broom,” is actually a parasite that infects trees. However, it continues to benefit the ecosystem by providing shelter for owls and flying squirrels from predators.
In order to see ponderosa pine trees in Washington, you pretty much need to go the east side of the Cascades. The elegant, red-barked tree teems on the Swauk Forest trail. Due to the sweet, butterscotch perfume that ponderosa pines emit, the experience of walking along this trail almost seems like something from a fairy tale. “I wish we had one of these trees at our school!” noted Noah Wilson, a seventh-grader who went on the hike.
The trail brochure and signs along the trail also taught the students about bearded moss, the importance of snags, practical uses of lodgepole pines, the purpose of silviculture and the commercial thinning of the trail in 1993.
Jasmine Park, another student, noted that, “A lot of the trees look the same.” Carol Taylor, at this point in the hike, organized an inductive learning opportunity where students were assigned to study one of six conifer trees. When they returned to school, they reported their findings to the class in an effort to help distinguish one tree from another. At a designated part of the trail, students spread out to identify their tree. They made observations in a journal that served as the major portion of their grade for the camping trip.
Jasmine was assigned to the western white pine tree. First, she took a white piece of paper and, putting it up right against the tree, traced the impression of the bark against it using the side of a crayon. She collected one of its needles, which she put in her journal, as well. Although she did not have time to measure the circumference of the tree, she was able to measure its height. The previous evening, Carol Taylor had taught students how to measure how tall a tree is simply by using a dowel and a tape measure. In order to make the stick the correct length, students measured the distance from their shoulder to the end of their hand and cut the excess. Then, they would back up from the tree until the dowel completely blocked their line of sight from it. At this point, they would mark their location and measure the distance together with a partner.
While studying forests and trees was a major part of the overnight camping trip, students did much more. Students familiar with camping, such as seventh-grader Ihlal Mustafa, had the opportunity to teach those who had never camped before how to set up a tent. “We’re out in nature and we’re having fun!” he noted in regards to having the opportunity to go camping with his classmates.
Carol Taylor cooked all of the meals on the trip and built the campfire on Thursday night. Students tried for the first time roasting Oreo cookies and loved eating them. Student Hannah Volsky said her favorite part of the trip was the campfire. Her friend Kayla Boller said that she liked “the fresh air and being in God’s creation.”
When everyone was in their sleeping bags on Thursday night, far removed from computer screens and cell phones, we were all allowed to just look up to the heavens above. What we saw were stars littering the sky like sand upon a beach for as far as the eye could see.
At the end of our three-mile hike, thus concluding the trip on Friday afternoon, looking out across a vast expanse of trees in the distance, on a trail with diverse trees lining its path, I had a question of my own for Carol Taylor. Why come all the way out here, three hours away from school, with all the planning that goes along with it, for this experience? “It’s important that students see what they study,” she said, “and it’s beautiful out here.”
She is a teacher who truly cares about the experiential learning of her students. Two days after returning, she and her husband took the eighth-graders on a six-day camping trip where they visited Mt. St. Helens and various natural wonders in eastern Oregon.
For her, the classroom extends beyond the walls of the school building. Where God has created something amazing and extraordinary in nature, such as ponderosa pines in central Washington or the Big Obsidian Flow in central Oregon, it is possible that Carol Taylor will find a way to get there with her students in the not-so-distant future.
Karl Karkainen is a junior-high English teacher at Heritage Christian Academy in Bothell.
