Taking the classroom outside

Leslie Bruce

Twenty children stood at attention -- their engines rumbling, as they

anxiously awaited the green light.

Dan Green, a naturalist with the Environmental Nature Center,

unlocked the metal gate and pushed it open. Instantly, a drove of

elementary school children spilled onto the Newport Harbor High

School baseball field to relish their free time.

“If they made crafts all day, they would go insane,” nature center

program director Lori Whalen said.

A popular destination for local school field trips, the 3.5-acre

nature center in Newport Beach offers a weeklong nature camp for

elementary school students during winter break.

Green, a 13-year nature center veteran, has been teaching the

nature camp for nine years.

“I like this so much,” Green said, ushering a student out of the

mud. “The wonderment in their eyes, the discovery of nature ... every

moment is a teaching moment.”

Green signaled for the students to reassemble, and in a

single-file line, they marched through the metal gate, back onto the

trail to begin their nature walk.

Stopping sporadically to ask questions about the sycamore trees

and the sunbathing lizards, the 5- and 6-year-olds trampled along the

bark-covered path, surveying the Environmental Nature Center’s 14

California habitats.

“Sometimes they amaze me with how smart they are,” Whalen said.

Katie McAllister, 5, plucked a piece of grass from the trailside.

“This is sour grass, you can eat it,” she said, placing the long

stem in her mouth before spitting it back out. “It’s sour. But it

tastes good.”

After stopping to snack on their homemade trail mix -- a

combination of pretzels, raisins and chocolate chips -- students

lined a long, wooden park bench to begin their next craft project.

“The quietest ones get it first,” Green said, passing out blocks

of red clay to the group.

Students worked intently on their project, molding their clay into

different objects and animals.

“I’m making a giraffe,” Breeana Greenberg, 5, said.

Some students decided to embrace the holiday season.

“I made a snowman,” said 6-year-old Joe Skinner, pressing his palm

slowly down on the clay mold. “I’m squishing it now.”