BACK TO NATURE

Frank Santora, left, and Aaron Shoaf looked at mushrooms growing in the mulch on a path at the Kelly School outdoor classroom.

Elementary students at Thomas W. Kelly School walked along a path through the outdoor classroom.

Amber Evans found an interesting mushroom at the outdoor classroom.

BENTON -- Exclamations of "I found something over here," and "Ugh, what's that?" within a classroom would usually make a teacher's heart fill with dread. But elementary school teacher Sharyn Strack gets almost as excited as her students when she hears those phrases in the outdoor classroom being developed on the campus of Thomas W. Kelly schools.

Strack was one of the writers of a Show Me Conservation Outdoor Classroom grant awarded to the district last spring. The district received the match grant of $2,150 from the Department of Conservation to develop an outdoor learning environment in a five-acre wooded lot purchased by the district last year for expansion.

Strack and co-worker Robert Goshe are coordinating the development of the classroom, which will probably be completed next summer.

A team from the department thinks the district has one of the state's only natural sand prairies on a school site. The team also heard the singing of the rare Illinois chorus frog during a tour of the lot. The frog is on the Missouri Watch List, which is a compilation of animals in Missouri in jeopardy of becoming extinct.

Strack said a number of people are helping to make the outdoor classroom possible. The Boy Scouts of America, Vince Hulshoff, John Merrick and Busch's Gardens of Gordonville have all contributed to the development of the area, and others have promised future contributions.

"I love doing this," said Strack. "I find this so wonderful for the children because up until this time we didn't have many trees on the lot. I think it's just nice for the children to be able to spend some time outdoors without being in organized play.

Students have found plenty to enjoy in the outdoor classroom. Whether they were examining mushrooms growing on the meandering trails or pulling off tree bark to carry a lime green caterpillar back into the building, students seemed engrossed in their roles as nature's observers.

"It's neat; it's a lot of fun," said Laura Job, 9. "I like to look at all of the insects and animals."

Nine-year old Britni Upchurch said she's enjoying the classroom but will like it much better next spring, when the butterfly garden begins to bloom. "You can find pretty things then," she said.

Teachers use the outdoor classroom for a variety of subjects. The lot features meandering trails, a 70-seat amphitheater, a small pond and uprooted trees that children can use to study math, science and even English. Strack said the site plans are already under way to develop butterfly, vegetable and geology gardens, a student nursery and a weather station.

"We're trying to keep part of the area well-kept so teachers and students can move around, but most of it will remain as natural as possible," she said. "You can teach anything out here; I'm planning to bring my junior high English students out to work on sensory words. Last week the cross country team used the meandering trails for a meet. It's really exciting because there's just a lot of opportunities out here."