Island school field trips resume at refuge
On Dec. 6, the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel hosted two sessions with students from The Sanibel School: a group of fifth-graders, followed by a kindergarten group.
Ranger Tucker Phillips and refuge Herb Swartz intern Ethan Dye covered many topics, such as a group discussion of what it means to recreate, what public land is and what a wildlife refuge is. Following breaks due to the pandemic and recent hurricanes, the school has returned to the refuge’s education schedule.
“The kids remember us. A lot of them come out and they might not remember ‘refuge,’ but they remember ‘Ding’ Darling,” Phillips said. “They all know Ranger Toni (Westland), and I think they really like coming out here, just exploring, getting to be outside.”
The fifth-graders went over the refuge’s weather conditions and filled out a sheet. It helps the students track weather changes over months and times of day and identify when a tide is low or high, plus the percentage of cloud cover. The class also explored the Wildlife Education Boardwalk (WEB), and the students tallied the number of different bird species they saw, practicing identification skills. They spotted green herons, and Phillips helped some differentiate between common gallinules, blue-winged teals and pied-billed grebes.
The kindergarteners learned the five essentials that an animal needs to survive: food, water, shelter, air and space. Storytime with Phillips followed. Listening to “I Am A Manatee. Yes, I am,” by Rosalie Tagg Masella, the students learned the basics about manatees: habitats, biology and food consumption. As he was reading, Phillips would ask questions relevant to each page. To help them visualize being a manatee, he had them imagine that they had mittens on, like a manatee with their pectoral flippers.
“A lot of these children’s authors are a lot better at relaying these ideas than I am, and it really helps me bridge the gap between the facts that I know and the level of knowledge and engagement that’s just right for little kids,” Phillips said.
The book ended with a discussion on why manatees are a protected species. The kindergarteners were then free to roam the WEB and look for birds and other wildlife nearby.
“A lot of these kids are smarter than we think, and we don’t have to change it a lot for the different grades,” he said. “I won’t go into as much detail with some of the younger kids, and I’ll reemphasize some things they may not pick up as fast. But, in general, I find a lot of these concepts pretty straightforward and they grasp it well.”