Completed nature center enhances Greenwood outdoor classroom

It has become a tradition among sixthgraders at the Greenwood Elementary School to have an overnight outdoor survival camp sometime during the school year, where they follow in the footsteps of Brian Robeson, the main character in the Gary Paulson novel, “Hatchet”. This year, the class held its annual event as a final hurrah to end the school year, holding the overnight stay near the recently completed Nature Center located just off of East Miller Street on the school grounds.

Armed with whatever they had felt appropriate to bring, the sixth-grade class went out on June 2 to face the unknowns of the small woody lot behind the elementary school. Scott Moseley, the sixth-grade teacher at Greenwood, said the outdoor survival day is the final part of the student’s work on the novel “Hatchet”, which they read in their Language Arts class. After reading about how the main character survived in the wilderness for 54 days, he said the class would at least get a taste of what the character went through by spending the night with their class at the school and learning some skills.

“We do things that the main character had to learn how to do and see what it was like,” he said. “The kids are arranged into groups that they chose, who they stay with in their tents is who they have to work with. It is surprising, some of the groups who I thought were going to do really well together have struggled while others have been able to communicate very well to get things done.”

Besides setting up their own campsite to stay at for the night, Moseley said there were several other activities the class did during the day, including archery, firestarting and shelter-building. Before they even got out into the woods, he said the students had to spend some time studying how to make shelters as well as decide what supplies to bring along for their overnight stay.

“The kids provide their own tents and they prepare beforehand to pack whatever it is that they think they will need,” he said. “When starting fires, we have flint and steel that they can use, and they have to gather kindling to start their fires. We do allow them to bring some materials from home, like lint, because we have had years where it was too wet to start anything. For shelters, they were all given a box full of random materials. Some groups got a lot of useful materials such as duct tape, tarps and rope, while some didn’t get as much. They had to learn to use what they had.”

As the students went about the different activities, Moseley stressed over and over to them about the importance of being prepared. Whether it was making sure they had gathered enough small twigs and pine needles to easily start their fires or going through their materials to decide the proper style and place for their shel-

CHEYENNE THOMAS/STAFF PHOTO ters, he said planning ahead helped the groups in the long run to get their tasks done safely, easily and with high quality.

“One of the things they have had to learn is to be prepared,” he said. “This is true in the wilderness where mistakes can be costly, but also in real life. They can take these lessons with them as they go through life and apply them to whatever struggles they are facing.”

Even as the students went about their tasks, Moseley said this year’s class has a benefit that the past several classes before never had: the completed Nature Center. Ever since he started teaching in his hometown seven years ago, Moseley said it was a dream of his to create a place where classes could go to learn in an outdoor environment. It was that dream that drove him to reach out to area organizations and businesses for donations to build the Nature Center, and now, five years later, it is finished.

“We wanted to make something for the whole school, something where the kids could come down and learn at,” he said. “This all started in my second year of being here five years ago. In my first year we didn’t have this. We started asking for donations and contacting organizations and we received almost $60,000 in donations.”

With the funds, the school has slowly been able to build the shelter. In the first years, Moseley said they were able to build the shell of the building, using that for outdoor classes. COVID-19 put some delay on the completion of the project, but with the help of the high school technology class in the past year, he said they were able to add the finishing touches to the center to make it more useable.

“Last fall the high school shop class came down and worked on the Nature Center,” he said. “They came over two times a week and they did the ceiling and sheet rock as part of the school project.”

Today, the Nature Center now includes a classroom, full bathroom with a shower, and a storage area that will be used primarily by the physical education department to store its skis and snowshoes. In addition to the physical aspects of the building, Moseley said the Nature Center also has electricity and working wi-fi so that students will be able to use their computers while at the site.

With the Nature Center fully complete, Moseley said the plan is to continue to hold events such as the annual sixth-grade survival camp at the site, and continue to give all classes at the Greenwood Elementary School the opportunity to learn in and about the great outdoors. Beyond its educational capacity, he said the Nature Center also stands as a testament to the Greenwood community and how supportive it is of their school.

“It is the typical school that is supported by its community,” he said. “The school is the center of our community and I know that people just want their kids to get the chance to get out and make some memories. They have been supportive throughout this whole project, and that does not surprise me one bit, but it does make things like this so special.”

CHEYENNE THOMAS/STAFF PHOTO