|
Durango Herald, Nov 8, 2007
Allison Pease, Executive Director
A very special group joined us for last month’s full moon hike – the
Dolores Middle School seventh grade science class.
Each year, students from across the region participate in a regional science
fair. Last spring, DNS offered a prize for the best junior-class project in
environmental science. The prize was a full moon hike for the winner and fourteen
friends.
Last spring’s winner was a young man from Dolores, Sachel, whose
project measured thermal conductivity of different paint colors on the floor
of a greenhouse at his home. In addition to being scientifically complete,
Sachel’s project sought to combine indoor and outdoor habitats to
improve his living space.
Sachel generously gave the prize to his seventh grade class this fall.
Working with their teacher, the students decided to travel from Dolores
and join our October full moon hike at Falls Creek. Lest anyone wonder about
the regional context of the award - Dolores is 47 miles, Silverton is 48
miles, and Farmington is 51 miles from Durango.
DNS program director, Becky Gillette, took charge
of the students, while I led a group of adults who’d signed up through
regular channels. Along the way, we talked about geology, river patterns,
and changing landscapes.
We discussed coniferous tree identification, ponderosa pine fire wonders,
and autumn leaf dynamics.
Near the turn-around point, the groups combined. Becky led everyone through
a playful skit in which students became the sun, earth, and moon to illustrate
that, just as Pink Floyd said, there is no dark side of the moon. Instead,
hikers learned that the time the moon takes to spin about its axis is the
same as it takes to circle the earth (about 29.5 days), a phenomenon that
results in only one face seen from earth.
We returned to the meadow below Falls Creek Road just as the moon crested
Missionary Ridge. The students promptly plopped to the ground. They sprawled
across the dried grass using backpacks as pillows and begging their teacher
to make the trip an overnighter.
That night, as they stretched across the field watching
the brilliance of the full moon unfold, those students – those kids – made
a connection to nature that was unscripted, unplanned, and joyful. I remembered
a quote by David Sobel, “If we want children to flourish, we need
to give them time to connect with nature and love the Earth before we ask
them to save it.” For DNS, it’s akin to a simple mantra we increasingly
embrace, “No child left inside.”
As the adults stood watching students watching the
moon, one leaned over to me and whispered, “They are going to remember
this for the rest of their lives.”
Grinning, I whispered back, “Exactly.”
MORE ARTICLES
|
