When the Ferguson-Florissant School District acquired the first acreage for the Little Creek Nature Area, in 1968, “hands-on learning” might’ve meant dissecting a frog pickled in formaldehyde. But for 50 years, North County kids have instead been able to visit this pioneering outdoor classroom, where they can study living frogs in their natural habitat. And turtles. And hawks. And invasive plants like garlic mustard, as the case may be.
“There’s really nothing like this in Missouri that’s tied so tightly to a school district,” says Eric Hadley, the district’s science coordinator. “There are a lot of schools with greenspace or who work closely with the Missouri Botanical Garden, but they don’t have a dedicated space like this”—or the tradition of conducting innovative programs there.
The goal is to make biology real and personally meaningful. Seniors spend two periods per day at the natural area during one semester. “They are full-fledged in the woods, outdoors every day,” says Hadley. They might conduct water-quality testing at the pond, study the area’s namesake creek, care for a food garden, or study wildlife. There’s also an indoor classroom where students can regroup—and get a look at the classroom’s permanent residents, including a tank of red-eared sliders and a rat snake. Little Creek has also partnered with such organizations as the Saint Louis Zoo, the Audubon Society, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service, and there are programs for gradeschoolers and recent grads.
At New City School, kids who are fascinated with the tech side of science—coding, 3-D printing, and robotics—gather after school once a week for the Make-It Workshop. In one session, one girl troubleshoots a gizmo that snaps over a faucet to turn it into a drinking fountain; she designed the device in Tinkercad and created it with a 3-D printer. She decides that a flaw (an unplanned hole in the bottom) requires a do-over. Another girl uses copper tape to create an LED-spangled light-up holiday card. A boy’s animated diorama that he built as a 3-D book report incorporates switches and LEDs. Another group of students disassembles old printers to reuse the parts.
Science teacher Eric Eskelsen and parent volunteer Amos Curlee co-founded the program three years ago. By the time that students enroll in the program, they’ve already learned from technology specialist Kristi Cloninger the basics of coding and what a microcontroller is. “So now we can do better and better things,” says Curlee. “You drop this stuff in front of them, and they’re, like, ‘OK, I got this.’”
Last year, students built a remote-controlled car, and they’re now hoping to put a robotic driver at its wheel. Eskelsen will also manage a group of sixth-graders through their own version of Shark Tank. “The goal is to create a product and then pitch it to the school,” he explains, adding that the bulk of the parts must come from the recycling bin or trashcan.
For other kids, it will be an art project. Eskelsen is collaborating with art and writing teachers to help students write about their pitches, then have those in art classes help with design and aesthetics. And, Curlee says, it’s that process that’s key. “When we make things, we try to reinforce that failure is part of the process,” he says. “People don’t want to fail. But it’s not that you’ve failed—it’s that failure is an unavoidable part of success.”
