Students from Kalama High School's Natural Resources Management class recently met with 2nd graders from Kalama Elementary School to investigate the question, "What are the different parts of plants and how do they help a plant live and grow?"
Rather than an inside-the-classroom collaboration, students from both schools ventured out to the district’s nearby forested property for a bit of hands-on learning.
As Natural Resources Teacher Thomas Benenati explained, the outdoor activity coincided with the biology curriculum that 2nd Grade students are currently learning about.
“What we are practicing is making some collections and identifying specimens in the field,” he said.
While elementary students experienced a fun, hands-on learning opportunity, students from the high school’s Natural Resources Management class were able to gain real-work preparatory experience for work in parks and recreation.
“They (the Natural Resources students) have been doing a unit on being a Park Naturalist and helping others appreciate, enjoy, and learn about the outdoors,” said Benenati.
“It’s a pretty cool experience,” agreed Kalama High School juniors Cutter Schmidt and Beau McIntosh.
“The hands-on learning is one of the better ways (to learn),” added Schmidt. “When you’re outside, you can actually see and observe what you’re learning about.”
“To have a district-wide collaboration like this, to not have any divide between the middle, high, and elementary schools, there’s just more and more room for this to grow, especially with some of the new facilities we’re getting here,” said Benenati. “You're going to see a lot more district-wide collaboration, and not just in science. I think it’s a great model for lots of disciplines.”