Forest Park’s Outdoor Classroom Is Opening Soon
Apply Now for Voyage of Learning or Nature Works!
Applications are now available for teachers and high school students interested in Forest Park Forever’s premier education programs, Voyage of Learning and Nature Works—and you won’t believe what’s on tap for 2020!
For example, Voyage of Discovery will take full advantage of Forest Park’s Nature Playscape, opening later this year.
“Teachers often take their students ti one of the Park’s cultural institutions in the morning, and then they’ll have a picnic lunch,” says Education Coordinator Ellie Stevens. “In Voyage of Learning this year, we’ll be preparing educators to use the Playscape to support learning in the Park institutions, creating an interplay between the indoor spaces and the outdoor spaces.”
For example, students might perch on a chunk of limestone and imagine themselves as explorers after visiting the Missouri History Museum’s Mighty Mississippi exhibit, or maybe they will create their own sculptures from natural materials after experiencing Andy Goldsworthy’s work Stone Sea at the St. Louis Art Museum.
As part of Voyage of Learning, teachers will work with the education facilitators at each institution, like the experts in animal behavior at the St. Louis Zoo. Teachers will come out of the program with a toolkit for helping kids interact with the Nature Playscape in new, exciting ways.
“We have great working relationships with all of the institutions, and the Park is the space that connects them all,” Stevens says. “We are the nexus and one of the best outdoor classrooms in St. Louis.”
High school students participating in Nature Works this year would certainly agree that Forest Park is an amazing outdoor classroom. This year, they’ll have a rare opportunity: working on Wildlife Island, part of the Park that only Forest Park Forever and City of St. Louis staff are allowed to access (and it’s only accessible by boat).
“It’s a resource for wildlife, so it is not open to the public,” says Nature Works Field Coordinator Billy Haag. “Nature Works will be helping with vegetation management and other projects, so it continues to be a great hiding place for our wildlife, like the great blue heron.”
Another focus this year will be what Haag calls “edge interface” spaces, like boundaries between trailheads and the forests.
“The students will help us make these areas more inviting for visitors,” Haag says. “By making sure they are free of tall grasses and invasive species, they will be able to see the impact of their work immediately.”
However, Haag says the best part of Nature Works is the relationships the students develop over the summer.
“About 80 percent of the students come from the City of St. Louis, with the rest coming from the county,” he says. “After they get into the work and get to know each other, amazing friendships develop among kids who might not have ever known each other before. It’s a hard goodbye at the end of the summer!”
The good news is, the students go back to school with a new appreciation for the outdoors—and sometimes even career plans.
“I had a student who said on her application she wanted to study marine biology,” Haag recalls. “After the summer, she said she had learned that she could even do that in Missouri. Who knows, maybe she’ll end up at the St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station someday!”