Help 75 Students Become Earth Keepers

Hello! 

I am Alia Riley, the new Orange County Programs Coordinator here at Piedmont Wildlife Center. Prior to my position as Coordinator, I worked as a counselor in all of our programs, including the afterschool programming in Chapel Hill and Carrboro schools with Emma DiLeonardi. I am so excited to continue working with these students in a bigger way!

This school year, thanks to the hard work of our staff and the gracious donations we have received (from donors like you!), we are able to run afterschool programs in three different Orange County Middle Schools: Orange Middle, A.L. Stanback, and Gravelly Hill. I can’t wait to tell you what we have been up to.

We started this season by building a strong foundation of teamwork with the campers through the game Peanut Butter River. During this activity, the campers must work together to cross the Peanut Butter River with only one singular jelly rock (bandana) each. If they let go of the jelly rock, hungry alligators (the counselors) will eat them. The campers are not given much instruction and must work together to strategize what they will do. It is not an easy task, especially as the alligators eat more and more of the jelly rocks. While it may look like the goal is just to simply work together and cross the river, it is actually to be kind and supportive of one another whilst working together - because every time a camper compliments, praises, or otherwise positively encourages someone on their team, they are able to gain another jelly rock back.  

After the bricks of our teamwork foundation had been set, we started to work on our nature connection and skill building. The next time I visited each school, I had the campers build shelters in the woods outside of their school. Their shelters needed to be built in a way that they could withstand different elements of weather. In the process of building their shelters, the campers found and used different materials to make tools that aided their shelter construction. Rocks were fashioned into axes to break apart rotting logs and raffia was used to make cordage so they could tie the tops of their shelters together.

We are going to return to these shelters every week to put the shelters through different tests and figure out ways the campers can expand on what they have built. Some tests we have put the shelters through include gently shaking it as if there was an earthquake, having all the campers blow on it to simulate the wind, and having them dump their water bottles on top while someone is inside to see if it would protect them against rain. 

When I was a kid, I had the opportunity to be out in nature all the time. I would sit in a tree every day when I got home from school. I grew up in the Orange County school system and would have loved an outdoor program such as this one. It makes me so happy to come to these schools and help connect these students with the outdoors the same way I was connected as a kid. Thank you again for making it possible for us to visit the children at these schools and provide a unique experience they may have otherwise not gotten.

Links:

• https://www.piedmontwildlifecenter.org/