Students in the Onamia School District got a little dirty Monday at the Northland Arboretum digging up black dirt, planting perennials in the arb’s butterfly garden as part of the school’s Mille Lacs Area Partners For Youth program.
About 90 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, who’re part of the program made possible through a federal grant, spent a few hours at the arboretum learning about nature, taking part in eight different activities, which included planting the garden.
Geri Pohlkamp, director of the youth program, said the five-year grant, which is in its last year, is aimed at educating youth on non-school days through 21st Century learning. The Onamia School District runs a four-day school week, Tuesdays through Fridays, so the students conduct field trips associated with the program on Mondays.
Pohlkamp said each year of the grant had a theme and this year’s theme is nature. Pohlkamp said about a third of the student body registered for the program. Monday’s trip to the arboretum was the first one of the 2011-12 school year.
Pohlkamp said all the field trips will be based on nature and future trips include visiting the Farm of St. Mathias, Mille Lacs Kathio State Park and Father Hennepin State Park. She said students also will participate in community service work, which will include helping packaging food for a project in Coon Rapids.
“Seventy-one percent of our students qualify for free and reduced meals so they don’t get a lot of chances to go anywhere,” said Pohlkamp. “They don’t know about all the state parks that are around here. When I was a kid living in Pierz I didn’t know what parks were around. This program will help expose the kids to different things.”
Pohlkamp said the program promotes physical activity and healthy eating, by hosting classes, such as yoga and learning about healthy snacks.
At the end of the school year, the students will become Junior Park Rangers.
Johannah Jones and Reanna Flom, seventh-graders, are in their second year of the program and were working with a group in the butterfly garden with their shoes off and their feet muddy.
“It’s fun,” said Johannah. “There’s nothing else to do since we don’t have school on Mondays and this is fun.”
Johannah said she helps her grandfather with his garden, as well as helps him with canning, so she knows a little about gardening. She said she likes to garden and she also likes photography, another skill she gets to utilize through the youth program.
Reanna said she joined because “it seemed like it would be fun to learn a bunch of stuff.” Reanna said her favorite thing to learn is the outdoors.
“I’ve been gardening with my mom and we’re thinking about adding another garden,” she said.
Connie Schutta, a retired teacher in the Onamia School District who attended the event with the students, said the youth program helps open up the world to these students. She said so many families are too busy for nature and don’t know about all the “wonderful things there are for people to appreciate.” Schutta said families don’t have to spend a lot of money to spend time in nature and it also gets students away from video games and other technology.
Joyce Libra of Nisswa, who coordinated the event, said she volunteered in a nature center in the Twin Cities metro area for six years and then moved to the Brainerd lakes area in 2005. She said her passion has always been to share her knowledge of nature with others.
Libra said it was a fun day for volunteers to educate students about nature, which included several activity stations, such as a hike through the arboretum and a chance for the students to learn about trees and other things in nature. The volunteers were Minnesota Master Naturalists students, who took courses through the Minnesota Master Naturalist program this past year. These students are expected to complete 40 hours of volunteer service in the next calendar year.
Catherine McGoldrick of Merrifield and Nicole Pederson of Plymouth, partnered up for the butterfly garden project. They got into the Minnesota Master Naturalists program because they enjoy the outdoors. McGoldrick, who joined the program to learn more about things surrounding nature, chose the garden project because she’s involved in the University of Minnesota’s monarch program.
“When the students first started planting it went kind of slow, but now they’re all into it and getting dirty,” said McGoldrick.
Pederson’s currently unemployed so she thought it’d be a good opportunity for her to join the program to build her social network and to help contribute to the community, all while enjoying the outdoors.
Teri Ford of McGregor, a Minnesota Master Naturalists volunteer, taught students about bird migration. She created a game with 24 stations where students learned about birds and the hazards they face when they migrate, such as power poles, animals and weather.
Ford said she wanted to be in the Minnesota Master Naturalist program because she loves the outdoors and she likes to hike and bike and be in nature.
JENNIFER STOCKINGER may be reached at jennifer.stockinger@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5851.
