Trips to Florida, time on the beach, and a little sight-seeing are common practices for hundreds of students during spring break from school each year. This year, 27 Allen County-Scottsville High School science students will spend their spring break in Florida but not just for fun-in-the-sun. The students will be learning as part of an educational enrichment opportunity for students at the high school.
The students---along with their teachers and chaperones---will leave Scottsville early Friday morning on a 629-mile journey to their first stop, Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park in north central Florida.
“More than 20 distinct biological communities provide a rich array of habitats for wildlife and livestock including alligators, bison, horses and more than 270 species of birds,” noted Jeremy Byrn, high school science teacher. “We will do some hiking Friday evening and camp overnight.”
Saturday morning, the group will make a brief stop at Silver Springs State Park where they will take a nature hike to learn about the flora and fauna of central Florida. After some kayaking, the group will proceed to the southern part of the Sunshine State.
“We will camp right on the water’s edge in the southern most tip of mainland Florida,” Byrn added. “We will get up Sunday morning and hike in the Everglades. We will then work our way to Key Largo where we will go to MarineLab.”
The students will spend Sunday afternoon through noon on Tuesday learning about ecology—both in a classroom setting and through field trips designed to get the students face-to-face with the eco-systems they learn about in the classroom.
“Marine Lab is an educational program which has a focus in three areas, Sea Grass Ecology, Coral Reef Ecology, and Mangrove Ecology,” Byrn explained. “For example, we will be in the classroom and the instructors will teach the students about Sea Grass Ecology. Then we will get on a boat and they’ll take us out. We will snorkel to see the things under water that we had talked about in the classroom. It’s pretty cool. It’s super educational. It’s intensive. They will learn so much while they are there. They will also do an astronomy lesson at night and have hands-on labs for the students.”
Following Marine Lab, the group will spend Tuesday evening through Thursday exploring the area around Key West. Stops will include the Dry Tortugas National Park, the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum, the Harry S. Truman Little White House, and the Dolphin Research Center. The group will return home Friday to complete the eight-day, 2,300 mile trip---a trip that includes travel by school bus and mainly camping in tents at their various stops along the way.
Byrn notes that the students---most of which are currently enrolled in AP (Advanced Placement) classes at the high school---will see many things which fall in line with what they study each-and-every day in the AC-SH classroom.
“Most of the students are AP students and this will be very beneficial for them,” Byrn said. “Most are taking AP Biology or AP Environmental Science. The things that MarineLab covers and the stuff we will learn on the trip will align perfectly with our curriculum.”
The educational trip is the first of its kind since 2008 but the eighth time overall an AC-SH student group has journeyed to Florida to study during a break in classes. Science teacher Rick Roberts and retired English teacher Sue Nell Roberts started the outings in the 1990s. Byrn, Rich Roberts, and high school teacher Chelly Taylor-Stamps and her family will be traveling with the students.