Outdoor Education in Upper Elementary

The goal of the Outdoor Education curriculum in Upper Elementary is, "To raise awareness, foster respect, and share enthusiasm for the natural environment; to learn how to protect and preserve the campus ecosystem and all natural resources." We enjoy going off-campus to explore ecosystems that differ slightly from our campus ecosystem and to learn from park naturalists in the Nashville area. So far this year, students have participated in a scavenger hunt at Bowie Nature Park, hiked at Percy Warner Park and Radnor Lake, and learned how to properly use binoculars to spot birds at Beaman Park Nature Center.

After each trip, students reflect in their Nature Journals. Here are some examples of their observations:

• The poison ivy vine can cover trees and the leaves change color in the fall, so you may not realize that the leaves on a tree are actually poison ivy! 
• Poison ivy vines look hairy.
• Poison ivy can still get you, even if there are no leaves on the vine.
• Turtles really like mushrooms.
• I saw a tufted titmouse, a Carolina chickadee, cardinals, black vultures, a crow, and evidence of woodpeckers.
• You can tell a nuthatch from a woodpecker because nuthatches hop down the trunk of the tree and woodpeckers hop up the trunk.
• You shouldn't put red food coloring in your hummingbird feeder.
• Birds like to look for bugs under leaves, so try to leave a section of your yard unraked in the fall.
• Yellow-bellied sapsuckers leave a ring of holes around the trunks of trees that hummingbirds and other birds and bats also use to find food.
• Vultures have bald heads so they don't get as messy when they are eating carrion.
• Coots are a bald eagle's favorite snack.