Kalmia Gardens of Coker College is hosting a series of “Week in the Wild” camps during the month of June, where kids from First Grade to Sixth Grade explore the wonders of the gardens and learn about local flora and fauna.
“We’re learning about the water cycle and how to protect water as a resource, the importance of plants and trees and some basic botany. Also, it’s very important in this digital age to remind kids that we are actually a part of nature and not separated from it,” says Dan Hill, assistant director of Kalmia Gardens. “These little ones, if they don’t have an appreciation for the natural world, when they get to be adults they won’t know or understand that we need to protect it.”
Campers meet each morning at the Joslin Education Center to review what they’ve learned and lay out the plan for the day. Those plans could include making art projects like leaf castings, learning about the life cycles of animals and insects, or playing around with butterfly nets until they learn the perfect ‘swoop and flip’ technique to trap a damselfly in the net without harming its delicate wings.
Hill then leads the group on a hike through all 35 acres of Kalmia’s winding trails. The kids visit the quaint tiny houses of the fairy garden, stop by the creek and pond, marvel at every spider and skink and spiky leaf, and learn many interesting things about the environment along the way.
Photos by Samantha Lyles
