Four-day camp ends with fun, education in Platte
Another year of Prairie Plains Resource Institute’s summer camp SOAR (Summer Orientation About Rivers) began during last week’s sweltering heat.
For two weeks each summer, Prairie Plains hosts SOAR for kids in grades three through six. Every day is something different, whether that be hiking the prairie, learning about the watershed, net fishing, and so much more. Kids are exposed to all the things right out their backdoor.
“It is fun to watch the groups come together and just watch them feed off of each other’s curiosity,” said Amy Jones, the executive director at Prairie Plains. “As soon as one camper shows interest in an insect that Sarah’s talking about, you can just see light bulbs turn on, and other campers get engaged…so that is always fun,”
This year’s camp activities began at Lincoln Creek in Aurora. Campers got to work on their archery aim, participate in a photo scavenger hunt and find unique leaves to study.
That afternoon, the different hats headed to Gjerloff Prairie for their afternoon sessions. Here, they took a closer look at the leaves they found earlier in the day, started their art project, and played a game about photosynthesis.
Then, the groups ended up back at Gjerloff Prairie on Tuesday, where the campers got to dip into the Platte River, discover the insects of the plains, and learn about Santee Sioux Native American history.
Wednesday included a full schedule at Bader Park, netting for plants and animals to look at during the microbe show later that day and discovering tree and prairie aging.
Later that afternoon, campers studied their catches from Bader under microscopes. From microorganisms to snails and minnows, the kids studied everything they could during their 30-minute sessions.
Brett Andersen with Nebraska Game and Parks also led a session on small mammals of Nebraska.
“Anytime we can have hands on display materials that the kids actually get to touch, and see, and think about it is fun for them,” Jones shared. They get into that. So that was an especially cool session. And it’s fun for us to bring in outside presenters. Brett in particular, is a passionate educator, so it’s fun to watch those educators share what they know a lot about with the campers.”
Thursday was everyone’s favorite day and the capsule of the week -- River Day. Campers spent all day at Gjerloff Prairie down by the river participating in games and activities. They ended the day with a swim in the river.
All of these sessions work together to build campers’ knowledge of the outdoors. Jones says a highlight is watching all the days’ sessions come together to create a week full of fun.
“I’m always thrilled to watch the days come together and see how each session sort of out-does the next,” she said. “We don’t usually have a theme, per se for SOAR, but we are talking a lot about leaves (this year), their function, and some of the kind of interesting, weird things that they do.”
Amy Wilson, fifth grade teacher at Aurora Elementary School plays an important role in tying together indoor and outdoor activities.
“Mrs. Wilson does such a great job of creating an indoor lesson that ties together what we’ve done in the lab,” Jones said. “She has created a really cool indoor lesson that talks about some of the functions and parts of leaves that you can then see under the microscope, and again, you can see the light bulb come on over the campers heads when they realize it’s something that Sarah talked about in the field, then they can learn more about in the lab with Mrs. Wilson.”
Ultimately, the goal of SOAR is to get kids outside and exploring. Prairie Plains wants to help facilitate an appreciation of the natural world and Nebraska to kids in the community and all around the area.
In one of Wilson’s daily lunch-time stories, she read about an older artist exchanging perspectives about the natural world with a younger person. Jones said it summarizes the goal of SOAR.
“(The goal) is to share with young people a passion for where we live in central Nebraska and all the cool, natural things that are here, and help those kids make a connection so they look back and see, “wow, where I grew up was really cool,”’ she said. “You don’t have to go to the mountains or to the beach to see neat things in nature. If you slow down and look at what we have right here in central Nebraska, you will see things that a lot of other people don’t see in other parts of the country.”