On June 4th 2015, roughly 70 students from Colton-Pierrepont, Huevelton and Trinity schools came out to spend a day immersing themselves in the natural environment at Indian Creek Nature Center's Conservation Field Day. Each year, 5th and 6th graders from across St. Lawrence County have the opporunity to get the hands-on experience in a variety of field science activities. On a beautiful sunny day with temperatures in the upper 70s, students participated in activities ranging from pond life exploration with Clarkson University researchers to bees and beekeeping with Greg Kalicin from Harmony Farm Apiary to a guided bird walk with MaryBeth Warburton from the Northern New York Audubon Society.  It was a great opportunity for students to become biologists for the day and engage with nature in new ways.  

Nature Up North hosted a nature scavenger hunt with digital cameras. What were students looking for? Just a few possibilities on the list were ferns, flowers, fruit trees, mosses, lichens, dragonflies, butterflies, frogs, woodpecker holes and a place where a troll might live. By using cameras and their imaginations, students were encouraged to take a closer look around and document what they found. Check out the photos below to see some of their work:      

A dragonfly artfully captured by Alexus, Emma and Ray from Colton-Pierrepont

 George, Cassidy and Jacob from Huevelton did some digging under logs to find crawling critters

Nice photo of a monarch butterfly by Callie, Savanah and Chloe from Colton-Pierrepont

Taking a closer look through the lens 

And building some teamwork skills!

Many thanks to John Bursnall of Indian Creek Nature Center for organizing the Field Day.  We all had a great time and are looking forward to next year!