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Outdoors Club Helps Middle Schoolers Learn About Nature
Members of the Hazelwood West Middle School Outdoors Club explore the banks of Cowmire Creek as it winds its way through St. Stanislaus Conservation Area, en route to the Missouri River.
Students from Hazelwood West Middle School’s Outdoors Club visited the St. Stanislaus Conservation Area in Hazelwood to learn how to use compasses in a natural environment. The club, which has more than 40 members, is an after-school group formed by seventh grade science teacher Chris Link.
“Nature is all too often taken for granted but not taken advantage of,” Link said. “Many students at Hazelwood West Middle School do not get the opportunity to experience the true meaning of the outdoors.’”
Link started the club to expose the students to scenery and wildlife not found in the city or in suburbs. St. Stanislaus, like many other Missouri conservation areas, has trails that criss-cross through the woods and fields.
“I am in the Outdoors Club because it helps me learn and understand about nature,” said Emily Rousseau, an eighth grade student. “It also helps me experience new activities.”
Dennis Cooke, an outdoors skills specialist for the Missouri Department of Conservation, met the group at St. Stanislaus. He passed out compasses and instructed the group on how to use them. He explained how compasses work, and how to hold them and how to read them.
Using a compass plays a role in game hunting. St. Stanislaus has many deer living within its borders as well as in the surrounding flood plain and river bluff territory, Cooke said. Cooke described how people in this nation fed themselves before the arrival of supermarkets – they hunted for and grew their own food.
Cook and Link set up one of the trails earlier, marking the route with clues to help members navigate through the park. Each clue, written on index cards, carried a letter. Besides learning how to navigate, the students had to decode the word, formed by the letters on the index cards.
Link and Cooke also stopped at random to provide “teachable” moments, such as showing students what poison ivy looks like so they know to avoid it or to see trees cut by beavers to form a dam on Cowmire Creek, which flows through the conservation area.
“Besides learning how to use a compass properly, I saw a mudslide that happened in St. Stanislaus and I discovered beaver bark,” said eighth grader Amanda Molinari.
Link has established a partnership with Cabela’s, the outdoors store located in the nearby St. Louis Mills Mall. Cabela’s will help the club purchase camping and fishing equipment.
“Chris came to me with an idea to get kids outside and more active,” said Allison Klouse, principal at Hazelwood West Middle School. “He took the initiative on this, working with Cabela’s and to encourage kids to protect our environment.”
Student suggestions for future Outdoors Club trips include visiting Meramec Caverns, viewing bald eagles from the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge over the Mississippi River or taking a float trip.
“I think it’s really cool that you have this club in your school,” Cooke told the group. “You will learn skills that you will pass on to your children in the future.”
