Winter Survival at Foster Woods

On Wednesday, March 27th, we took a short trip to Foster Woods for winter survival.  Washington County Naturalist, Pam Holz, had talked with our classes about this topic a couple of weeks ago and met us there that day to lead the students in their adventures.  Even though we were not in a traditional classroom, there was a lot of learning going on!  The teamwork and cooperation skills needed to complete the tasks made the trip so worthwhile.  Students had to find an appropriate place in the woods to set up camp, build a shelter, start a fire, and melt snow for drinking water.  Pam gave each group points based on the sturdiness and location of their shelter, how long they kept their fire going, etc.  Only a few of our eight groups "survived" the winter.  We had a BLAST!  We also completed a scavenger hunt--one of the items to check off was to pick up something in the woods that didn't belong; you can see that our 5th graders were pretty successful with that by looking at the pictures and seeing some of the stuff they brought back!  A good time was had by all!

 Some groups survived. . .and some didn't!

 We couldn't believe some of the things they were bringing in from the woods!