Email: "Ripley After-School Program Participants Learn About Nature"
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RIPLEY – Participants in the after-school program at Ripley Central School recently had green on their minds.


With the help of Diane Clark of the Greystone Nature Preserve in Fredonia, the children learned about the environment and how they can work to protect Mother Earth.


“We were asked to join the after-school program when they (the school) was awarded the 21st Century Grant,” Ms. Clark said. “We’re called community professionals, so we were asked to come in and do a project. ‘Go Green’ was the title of it.”


As part of the activities the children participated in, they were asked to create and present a poster demonstrating their knowledge of what they had learned. The children also tried different types of healthy food, including cherry tomatoes, pomegranates and green peppers, sang songs about the environment and used chop sticks.


“The main thing we were trying to do was talk about the interconnected web of life,” Ms. Clark said. “We tried to make them feel they were connected. They had a food and we usually played a game. My husband’s a musician, so they had their fair share of singing environmental songs.”


The children also took part in outdoor activities and learned about nature-related items such as photosynthesis and plants.


“We tried to have everything be experiential,” Ms. Clark said. “If we were talking about something, we tried to have it be right there for them.”


Ms. Clark said she believes children need to move away from television and computer screens and experience what the outdoors has to offer.


“I think at this age they only get little glimpses of what the whole picture is, but that’s what we tried to do – give them a few glimpses of what the natural world is and what their place is in it,” Ms. Clark said. “I think the biggest thing that we worked on is that we are dependent on this earth. That’s what we were trying to show them, that they were part of the web of life. It was all about me and nature.”

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