Environmental Endeavor
by Joshua Castronuovo and Jack Stengel
April 24, 2012
On Friday, April 20th, St. Ann Catholic School middle years teachers and students went on a field trip to Pine Jog Nature Center. The trip was designed to give students the opportunity to learn how to live with the local ecosystem and have fun. This annual event helps students celebrate Earth Day. The trip to Pine Jog lets the students remember
how being green, as well as keeping the planet clean, is very important.
Throughout the day, teachers lead the students in fun activities or classes focusing on the environment. In the morning, students went through their usual classes consisting of a combined math and science class led by John Timmins and Kate Kilian, a Language Arts class led by Angela Beattie, and a religion class led by Cate Green. During the math and science class, students were led through the woods on a nature scavenger hunt. Ms. Beattie helped the students prepare skits about fixing environmental problems in her class. And Mrs. Green taught a class on the Catholic Social teaching, Care for God’s Creation; by telling the students how they could pre-cycle, or find ways to prevent natural products going to waste. Seventh grader, Max Ducoste said he would pre-cycle by, “putting a timer on the shower.” Once all classes were concluded, students were given 30 to 45 minutes to eat and mingle between classes.
After lunch, students broke out into different activities that had to do with the environment such as orienteering. From outdoor meditation, to making organic ice cream, this field trip had it all. Not only were the kids having fun, they were also learning about resources which God’s creation gives to us and ways to conserve and protect them.
Many of the students had a good time simply because they were with their friends. Some made sure they were together throughout the whole day. But there was one activity that was to be done by class and that was an informational skit that Ms. Beattie helped the students prepare. This was a no grade assignment as well as a competition between the classes. In order to win, the skit had to be both interesting and informational. Many classes could have benefited from extended time to prepare, but their skits were still extremely funny. In the end, the eighth grade won with a cheer and a rap song. All in all, it was a very good performance and a great day with nature.
And on behalf of the whole MYP at St. Ann Catholic School, we thank Pine Jog Nature Center for granting us the right to use their facilities for our Earth Day field trip.
