Rock Eagle 4-H Center: Environmental Education
Letters From Other Educators
From Russell Elementary
Rock Eagle Environmental Education! I include an exclamation mark to emphasize its importance. The growth of the program from 25 years ago to the present has been phenomenal. From its start Diana Davies set high academic expectations to be explored from every corner of the outdoor facility. The staff members added in to the program throughout these years have maintained that expectation and are of that same high quality.
I have had the great opportunity to bring my 5th grade students to Rock Eagle for each of those 25 years. Social, teamwork, and leadership skills weave importantly in with the already existing academic areas offered. As a result the learning that occurs at Rock Eagle is invaluable to the classroom and is just fun! Perhaps the EE title attached to Rock Eagle for Environmental Education should also stand for Exceptional Excellence!
Sincerely,
Jean Murray
5th Grade Teacher
Russell Elementary, Cobb County
June 27, 2004
From Fowler Drive Elementary
I am a teacher at a Title I school in Athens-Clarke County, GA. As a teacher of the gifted and talented, I work with third, fourth, and fifth graders. Last year I was able to attend Rock Eagle 4-H Environmental Education Center with 70 fourth graders from my school. It was a truly rewarding experience for these students and also for me and their other teachers.
Teaching students who do not have as much experiential background as others is very challenging. Rock Eagle helped give our students the hands on, and feet on, experiences that they need to have a thorough understanding of the concepts that we had tried to teach in the classroom.
The lake study was a great place for the students to actually see "how matter and energy do or do not cycle in an ecosystem." They were able to see, touch, hear and even smell the nutrients, producers, consumers and decomposers that make up this particular ecosystem and the others that exist at Rock Eagle. Seeing, feeling, hearing and smelling the mud, the plants, and all of the living organisms of the lake and the forest make the learning more meaningful and memorable.
Seeing the relationships of organisms in a living community helps them to understand them. They can observe the ducks and birds feeding on the plants and organisms that live in the pond. They can observe and examine the different life cycles of the insects that are buzzing about us. They can catch a dragonfly nymph in their net in the water as an adult is sitting on a nearby leaf. And when these communities and life cycles become real to them, they can better understand "the impact of an interruption in the food chain." And they can understand how pollution can cause such an interruption and how they can be a part of the cause or solution of that pollution.
The staff makes the experience even more valuable with their games and activities that help reinforce what the students have just discovered. Even the other teachers have remarked to me about how much they learned. This will help them with their follow up activities back in the classrooms.
Seeing these children experience the hands on approach to the lake study is also something that is very memorable to me. I don't need photographs to remember the looks on their faces as their boots sunk into the mud, or as they brought their nets up out of the water filled with wiggly organisms. I will always remember the little girls that didn't want to get wet…but ended up the muddiest of them all, and the last ones out when time was up. But most of all I'll never forget the laughter of the quiet, shy Latino student, as this teacher was the first to slip and end up with a muddy bottom!
Rock Eagle makes environmental science come alive. In my relationship with some of these same students in science club, gifted classes and fifth grade science, they often refer to their trip to Rock Eagle and are able to make connections with the new topics that are being learned or discussed. And my new fourth graders can't wait to go this year! We have seen such a remarkable insight gained by our students that our principal has made the Rock Eagle Environment Education Center an essential part of our fourth grade curriculum.
Sincerely,
Halley Page, Spectrum
Fowler Drive Elementary School
August 15, 2005
