our stories: learning through field study

Litzsinger Road Ecology Center

Our teachers take the classroom into the fields of Litzsinger Road Ecology Center several times each year.

Seeds fly everywhere when a group of third graders toss stalks of little bluestem into the air. Nearby, a group of their classmates plant stratified native plant seeds in flats for greenhouse germination. Both activities are part of their comprehensive prairie restoration project.

On another day, fourth graders stoop at a creek’s edge to count water striders and track a deer along the edge of a prairie. They are comparing and contrasting three local ecosystems — prairie, woodland and stream — by analyzing their own observations of biotic and abiotic features over a one-month period. (Are you as smart as a fourth grader?)

Fifth graders study landforms, noting the way streams erode and deposit, and then create their own stream table to test their theories.

Litzsinger Road Ecology Center is just one example of field work at RJA. Students also learn about Missouri government inside the state capital building, about the Civil War at Lincoln’s boyhood home, about Egyptian sculptures at the St. Louis Art Museum and about animals of the arctic at the zoo. We know, after all, that the world is our laboratory and that our children are making not only discoveries, but learning memories that will last a lifetime.