This week, approximately 100 fifth-grade students from schools across Randolph County embarked on a field trip to Camp Pioneer in Beverly to participate in the Randolph County Outdoor Education Program.
The program provides the students with a three-day residency grounded in the county's rich natural environment and cultural heritage.
Activities in the hands-on outdoor learning course included lessons on the history of Randolph County, arts and crafts, Appalachian music and the ecology of the area.
Students who participated also had the chance to explore local waterways, forests and culture and learn resource management practices.
Students were instructed by staff members of the Mountain Institute, an environmental education and conservation nonprofit based in Spruce Knob in the Monongahela National Forest. The program was started by Elkins community members Dave Clark, while employed by the Mountain Institute, and Carol Cain in 2001.
Katrina Weyland, an instructor from the Mountain Institute who is currently running the Randolph County Outdoor Education Program for her third year, believes the program provides a valuable hands-on outdoor learning experience for the students.
"The students not only learn about science, but the history and culture of the area," Weyland said, adding that the program "gives them a taste of careers they may have in the future, and gets them more interested in the community in which they live."
Deborah Rector, a fifth-grade teacher whose students from North Elementary School participated this week, agreed. "The field trip is a fantastic opportunity for the kids. They not only learn all about the area in where they live through an active hands-on approach to learning, but also learn valuable life skills - the camping aspect of the trip gives many of the students a lesson in being away from home for the first time."
Every spring and fall, the Mountain Institute leads groups of students from schools across West Virginia and the region in science-based experiential outdoor learning courses. Programs are based out of the Spruce Knob Mountain Center, a 400-acre preserve located high in the Potomac Highlands of West Virginia. The area features some of the darkest night skies in the eastern United States, the highest peak in the state, the healthiest streams in the state, unique round buildings (yurts) based on traditional Mongolian design and the 1 million-acre Monongahela National Forest.
