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Students get back to nature

| April 12, 2018 1:00 AM

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Kelly Lattin of Coeur Greens shows Woodland Middle School students microgreens. Lattin said the produce was hydroponically grown by the local company. (JUDD WILSON/Press)

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Woodland Middle School seventh-graders learn about entomology from Idaho Department of Lands gypsy moth data coordinator Stephani Penske. (JUDD WILSON/Press)

By JUDD WILSON

Staff Writer

POST FALLS — Woodland Middle School seventh-graders got up close and personal with North Idaho flora and fauna Wednesday at Northland Nursery.

“The trend has moved from understanding and appreciating what’s around you to more of a screen focus,” said life science teacher Karina Selby.

Selby designed the field trip to give students an out-of-classroom experience with insects, trees, birds, weeds, and agriculture. The students rotated through five stations at regular intervals. Each station had its own learning objective centered on responsibility toward the local ecosystem, she explained.

Coeur Greens Chief Operating Officer Kelly Lattin let students handle produce grown by the local company’s hydroponic system. The hydroponic system is easier to maintain and can be run remotely through a smartphone app, she said. Lights, nutrients, water, and temperature for the hydroponic farm can all be set while miles away, she told the students. Super 1 Foods features the locally grown produce, including lettuce, radishes, peas, and fava beans. Students not accustomed to vegetables had hilarious, mixed reactions to the microgreens they sampled.

Stephani Penske of the Idaho Department of Lands showed students bark samples from trees destroyed by beetles and other pests. Different species have unique strategies and leave identifiable marks on the trees, she told the students. She addressed rusts, parasitic plants, caterpillars, and fungi as well.

The grub gets unwarranted blame for killing trees, she told them, since people chopping down dead trees for firewood often find them present and assume they killed the trees. Not so, said Penske. Other creatures do the lethal work but are long gone by that point and so escape detection, she said.

Students listening to retired forester and outdoors educator Brian Baxter of Silver Cloud Associates handled feathers and bones from several local birds of prey. Baxter said engaging the attention of young people is challenging, but once they start in with questions, understanding the hunting strategies of birds of prey becomes fun for them.

“The funding isn’t there for these kinds of experiences,” said Excel Foundation President-elect Katie Morrisroe, who explained that the organization was happy to help fill in the funding gaps for projects like this which go above and beyond the standard curriculum. The organization granted around $1,000 to pay for transportation for the field trip, said Selby. She said the experience couldn’t have happened without the Excel grant, or the willingness of Northland Nursery owner Jay Decker to host the event free of charge.

Selby said her goal was for students to walk out with an interest in learning more about science.

“I want to spark their curiosity,” she said.