Partnership with Epping Elementary School (EES)
In spring 2017, Commissioner Liz Wilson and EES science teacher Ms. Alyson Bates began to collaborate with the goal of creating a partnership between the Commission and EES. Wilson and Bates were awarded a New Hampshire Association of Conservation Commissions (NHACC) grant to assist in the launching of the Commission/EES partnership through a 5th grade natural resource project.
The purpose of this project was to engage 5th grade students with a specific conservation area (the Fox Run Conservation Area) in the Town of Epping and to foster connections with and appreciation for local natural resources. This project aimed to make these connections through a Commission partnership with the EES science program as students learned to identify natural resources and ecological and societal links between resources, as well as ways to protect natural resources. The project also sought to demonstrate to students that there are people within their own community who use scientific concepts to understand their community (for example, the team that produced the Natural Resources Inventory), make decisions (for example, assessing and prioritizing land for conservation), and solve problems (for example, minimizing or restoring wetland buffer impacts).
In April 2018, 5th grade students participated in a field trip to the Fox Run Conservation Area. They walked the area’s loop trail in classroom groups to identify natural resources and resource connections (for example, proximity, food sources, habitat, etc.). Back in the classroom, two student teams designed scavenger hunts of varied formats for the community that guide users to locate high-value natural resources/resource connections and prompt users to consider the broader landscape in which these resources are situated. Scavenger hunts were submitted by students to the Commission in early June 2018. The Commission selected a winning scavenger hunt during the June 12, 2018 meeting to feature on the Commission’s website and for use by the public. Maintaining a publicly available copy of the scavenger hunt serves as a long-term resource to the community as a connection with a local conservation area and recreational space.
It is the Commission’s hope that ongoing connections with local spaces and resources will encourage future stewards of these lands.
Here’s the flyer for the winning scavenger hunt for 2018:
Click here to see all the Scavenger Hunt submittals as well as other Natural Resource Products created by the fifth graders.