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   from the issue of April 27, 2006

     
 
UCARE student learns nature, life lessons through camp experience

 BY STEPHANIE SPARKS, FOR THE SCARLET

While other college students were busy tanning or sleeping away the summer of 2005, Julie Gompert was busy catching bugs.

A first-year UCARE student, Gompert spent two weeks working with 18 young children, ages 2 to 5, at the 2005 Nature Camp Experience held at Ruth Staples Child Development Lab. The camp provides children a hands-on opportunity to explore, engage and connect with the natural world by using the scientific method. While at camp, Gompert explored an arboretum, searched for birds, assisted children in making bug-catchers and went on a scavenger hunt for grass, pine cones, leaves and bark.

"The children were able to learn about the natural environment by examining different things in nature," Gompert said.

She worked with Michelle Rupiper, director of the Ruth Staples lab.

Rupiper said many children do not have the opportunity to have indepth experiences with nature. And that's where the Nature Camp Experience - which uses high-interest techniques to teach children about the scientific method - comes in.

"We're teaching children how to think instead of what to think," Rupiper said.

Even the very young children who participate in the camp learn how to gather and analyze data, describe what they see, and how to make predictions based on their observations.

Gompert describes this process of learning through one of her experiences walking to the arboretum. "It was a warm day so the children concluded that it was too hot for the birds to be out flying around" she recalls. The children eventually spotted an unfamiliar brown bird, "so we looked at the pictures in the bird book until we saw one that looked similar."

By teaching children to think critically and scientifically, Gompert hopes to take the techniques she has learned in the camp and apply them to orphanages overseas.

"I observed that children are eager learners and fully engaged in the nature inquiries," she said. "We learned new things each day and had a fun time interacting with the natural environment around us, as well as getting to know friends in the process."



UCARE - This is an ungoing series of UCARE-related stories written by students in Advertising 451/851.
UCARE, funded by the Pepsi Endowment, supports opportunities for undergraduates to work alongside faculty and directly participate in the campus's research or creative activities. Undergraduates may apply for UCARE awards to incorporate a research or creative experience into their undergraduate education.
For more information, go online to www.unl.edu/ucare.


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UCARE student learns nature, life lessons through camp experience

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