Indian Head Elementary School and Glymont Middle School students were recently up the [Mattawoman] creek with a paddle when they took part of an outdoor field trip designed to stoke an interest in green careers.
Fourth- and seventh-grade students visited Smallwood State Park in Marbury on the Potomac River last month as part of an outdoor learning and recreation opportunity brought to Charles County Public Schools (CCPS) by partners Military Families Outdoors, Wilderness Inquiry and Blue Star Families and it’s Maryland chapter. Indian Head visited the park on Oct. 25 while Glymont took part over two days earlier in the week.
Wilderness Inquiry, a nonprofit based in Minnesota, oversees the Canoemobile program, a floating classroom that takes students out on the water with experienced guides. During the excursions, the guides share their appreciation of the outdoors and serve as models to students interested in exploring careers like theirs.
“All the folks who are facilitating today are talking about what led them to their careers,” Ian Buter, content specialist for science, said of the Wilderness Inquiry staff. “How they chose to have these types of jobs. We just want to open the eyes of the kids to green careers.”
Hannah Barba-McClane, a Glymont student, said she liked the idea of a “green career,” and learning more about the environment and how to care for it. “The [guides] were saying that they found this job because they love the outdoor experience,” she said. “And when we went canoeing, I was thinking to myself, ‘Hey, I could do this instead of being inside all day.’”
The field trip is split into two parts — one on the water, the other on land. Staff of the Nanjemoy Creek Environmental Education Center discussed elements of environmental education through a land-based casting game where students tested their fishing skills on brightly-colored plastic bass and learned about local wildlife.
On the water, students are tasked with paddling while exploring and learning about the waterway and what lies beneath and around it.
“Canoemobile's outdoor, place‑based learning gives students something they can’t get from a textbook — direct, hands-on experience,” Carly Rhodes, day and youth programs manager with Wilderness Inquiry, said. “When young people are immersed in their environment — paddling a canoe alongside their peers, testing a local river's water quality or seeing wildlife up close — they're engaging all of their senses and making real-world connections to what they are learning in school.”
The initiative culminated in a Military Families Outdoors Community Day at the park on Oct. 24 where military families could enjoy a free day of outdoor recreation.
The field trip enhances what students are learning in the classroom and gives them a real-world experience to tie it all together. “We want them to experience authentic learning so that they can see science can get [them] someplace and it can be fun” Buter said. “It’s a great experience for them.”
Rhodes said the Canoemobile program helps students build confidence and realize the outdoors belongs and must be cared for by everyone.
“We want students and their families to see their local waterways, parks and public lands as resources they can return to,” Rhodes said. “Ideally, this one day on the water becomes the start of an ongoing relationship — with the outdoors, with their local community and with one another. Ultimately, we hope students and families leave feeling more connected to nature, to their peers and families, and to their own potential.”
Students gave the experience a collective thumbs up. “I think this field trip was a 10 out of 10,” Barba-McClane said.
To learn more about the field trip, visit the CCPS YouTube channel.
About CCPS
Charles County Public Schools provides 27,904 students in grades prekindergarten through 12 with an academically challenging education. Located in Southern Maryland, Charles County Public Schools has 38 schools that offer a technologically advanced, progressive and high quality education that builds character, equips for leadership and prepares students for life, careers and higher education.
The Charles County public school system does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age or disability in its programs, activities or employment practices. For inquiries, please contact Dr. Mike Blanchard, Title IX/ADA/Section 504 Coordinator (students) or Nikial M. Majors, Title IX/ADA/Section 504 Coordinator (employees/ adults), at Charles County Public Schools, Jesse L. Starkey Administration Building, P.O. Box 2770, La Plata, MD 20646; 301-932-6610/301-870-3814. For special accommodations call 301-934-7230 or TDD 1-800-735-2258 two weeks prior to the event.
CCPS provides nondiscriminatory equal access to school facilities in accordance with its Use of Facilities rules to designated youth groups (including, but not limited to, the Boy Scouts).