Special thanks to Stacey Jensen, Sesquicentennial State Park Interpretive Ranger, for her thoughtful insights and letting me bounce ideas off of her in preparing this adventure.

This field trip was designed with the SC Connections Academy in mind, but works just as well for any elementary school. The search involves using GPSs to track down plants. (Critters are still around, but are not as numerous.) Springtime is best for critters of all sorts. Fall (depending on how late in the season) is pretty much limited to a search for plants.

Your job? Search the woods for things found in the guidebook. If you see something not in the guidebook, check this website. You can even add things not seen in either. (There are spaces to add what you find.) You won’t see everything shown in the guidebook or on the website, but that’s okay.

How many things must you find? There is no magic number. What you will find depends on the time of year, the weather and how good a searcher you and your group members are. Some things appear for years, some for months, some for weeks, some for a day, some for a minute, some for a few seconds, and some will appear and be gone in a flash, so there’s no way of promising you will see them all.

But, if you look very carefully, maybe, just maybe, you will come to see the magic of the woods – an always changing environment to explore. Go slowly, or you’re going to miss a lot.

LOOK, BUT DO NOT TOUCH, and always be aware of your surroundings!

Begin Your Adventure With The Story Below

Or you can read the story here.