Regular classrooms are fine for some forms of learning, but about 900 Centreville area students learned in nature's classroom at the annual Fifth-Grade Conservation Tour Monday and Tuesday at Covered Bridge Park, north of town.
Fifth-graders from various area schools toured, along with their teachers, eight stations that were manned by experts in their field.
Master Gardener Cathy Brockington taught students about "alien invaders," not green men from other planets, but rather, green bugs such as the emerald ash borer, and exotic germs such as the West Nile virus, which originated in Africa.
At another station, fifth-graders learned about hydro-electric power and its impact on the environment from John Griffith of the City of Sturgis Electric Department. He stressed the importance of renewable energy and its relation to wildlife and conservation.
"You are made of stuff from the soil," said St. Joseph County (Mich.) program director Tim Peterson to his student audience.
Peterson explained that all life is derived from soil, and when soil is polluted, lives that depend on that soil are affected. He also taught that soil and water do not mix—rather, soil runoff into water is a key source of water pollution. Hence the need for grass and trees to keep soil intact. He explained that topsoil is not actually the uppermost layer of dirt; the top layer is actually humus.
At the end of his presentation, Peterson presented a "soil parfait," which looked just like a parfait that one would eat as a refreshment, but was made of layers of soil, to Constantine Elementary fifth-grade teacher Nancy Hill.
Dragonfly nymphs and other insect larvae that live in the water were the main attraction at the pond ecology station, led by St. Joseph County (Mich.) groundwater technician Melanie Stoughton. She taught that biologists test macro-invertebrates (animals with no backbones that one can see with the naked eye) to test water quality in ponds, rivers and streams. Ponds, she said, are generally muckier than rivers and streams because the water tends to be warmer and does not flow as much.
Stoughton echoed Peterson in stating that sediment runoff is the No. 1 cause of water pollution in Michigan. This runoff greatly impacts the health of temperature and pollution-sensitive macro-invertebrates.
Aquatic plant specialist Ray Newman said that while animals require oxygen to survive, one of the most important oxygen-producing plants is algae. It grows on and in water, which covers 75 percent of earth.
The Fifth-Grade Conservation Field Tour has been offered for more than 40 years, according to St. Joseph County (Mich.) Extension educator Monica Robinson.
At the end of the event, each student in attendance received a pine seedling to plant, in order to start their own conservation efforts.