Advanced Naturalists

We just wrapped up our final week of summer camp, and everyone had a great time!

Here are some highlights from the week:

On Tuesday we made our own shelters from ropes, ponchos, stick, and whatever else we could find.

We also found a friendly snake in the creek!

On Wednesday we spent some time with the bees.

Everyone tried their hand at de-capping part of the hive.

We even got to bottle our own bear of honey!

On Thursday we made our way up to Bena Brook to explore the geology of the area.

We made a few friends along the way...

Some of us were fortunate to receive the Bena Brook Spa Treatment!

On Friday we started our day looking at how creeks and river are formed by experimenting with the Stream
Table.

We then made it down to our very own Cedar River to explore the shallows created by the drought.

In the afternoon we visited Indian Creek, where we had spent a lot of time this week.

We saw lots of neat things!

We even got to play in our swimming hole one last time!

What a wonderful a end to the week and to our Summer Nature Camps!

Biking the Watershed

We had quite an exciting day today as we hit the Sac & Fox Trail on bike!

We made quite a few stops to explore the ecosystem that surrounds the Cedar River.

We had quite an exciting ride!

In the afternoon we took a closer look at our watershed by hopping into the Indian Creek.

We kept our eyes out for some aquatic creatures to look at.

We founds crawdads...

...a frog...

...and even a credit card!

...but our biggest find of the day was a scapula (shoulder blade) of a still to be determined mammal.

A wonderful day exploring the river and creek!

Today was our last day of Young Explorers Camp, and we filled it with some of our favorite things to do!

First we went down to the wetland to fish.

We waited very patiently...

...and with the help of our wiggly friends...

...we caught some fish!

(and a turtle too!)

In the afternoon we made our way down to our favorite blackberry patch.

We collected enough for a special treat later in the day...

...but first we went down to the creek and our favorite swimming hole!

The kids had a great time jumping, splashing, and even making some neat drip sandcastles. 


We ended the day--and the week--on a sweet note with ice cream topped with freshly picked raspberries. yum!

This was a truly memorable and enjoyable week in the outdoors.