A field trip to the Landscape Arboretum is a time for continued discovery and exploration for Arts Us Camp Teranga youth
8/06/2024
A field trip to the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum is an important part of the Children’s Garden in Residence (CGR) youth education program with program partners. It is an opportunity to introduce youth to the Arboretum with a visit to some of the gardens, the bee center, and a green space away from the cities. It’s a time for continued discovery and exploration of plants and insects- key components of the CGR program. And it’s a time to just be youth enjoying summer and the outdoors.
On July 19, the Arboretum treated the participants in Arts Us’ Camp Teranga summer garden education program to such a field trip. It was a beautiful day and participants included 44 Arts Us youth, 9 Arts Us staff and 4 parents with activity guidance coordinated by three Arboretum staff members and RCMG volunteers, Aimee Schaeffer, Mary McCarron and Ed Shinbach.
Activities were based at Picnic Shelter B. With plenty of shade on the east side, sun beyond on the hillside, and a pollinator garden on the west side, it's a wonderful stage for a variety of activities. The pollinator garden was the hot spot for catching and comparing bees and looking for the pollen baskets on their legs, finding red milkweed beetles, and occasionally catching elusive moths, butterflies, and dragonflies. Small toads were a surprise delight as well.
In the shade of the big oaks, youth could pot up a jelly bean plant, dwarf elephant ear or Echeveria succulent to take with them. There were also all the materials to create a miniature greenhouse necklace to sprout a bean seed or two. Magiscopes were always at the ready to examine flowers, pollen, leaves, insects, seeds, and one’s own fingerprint. The shade was also a great place to chill with friends or one of the MG volunteers in a comfy ground chair.
Further out on the lawn and in the sun, there were frisbees to be caught and a ball to kick around with friends. There were big wands and little wands for creating bubbles of all sizes. And if the day just became too hot there was a sprinkler for running through and cooling off.
Zoe Bakken-Heck, Visitor Learning Program Specialist at the Arboretum, brought activities from the Discovery Booth for youth to explore in the picnic shelter, including plant material rubbings and plant life-cycle scavenger hunts. Some 75 lemons later, everyone had made their own cup of fresh squeezed lemonade. After lunch, including fresh made pico de gallo and chips, youth, staff, parents, and volunteers dispersed to the Tashjian Bee and Pollinator Discovery Center at the Farm at the Arb or to visit a few of the gardens near the Visitor Center.
The crew that visited gardens near the Visitor Center also visited the Greenhouse at the Learning Center where there were many plants to touch and smell and got to release ladybugs in the Greenhouse. In the Children’s Garden at the Learning Center, youth had an unexpected opportunity to harvest a carrot to sample and a few to take home. Thinking about their peers who had gone to the Bee Center, they harvested enough carrots that everyone would be able to sample one back at the picnic shelter.
Before heading back to Saint Paul, everyone enjoyed fresh cut watermelon. There was an industrious crew rinsing and distributing carrots for everyone to sample, a few last minute baggie greenhouse necklaces being made, and a few more succulents to pot up.
Comments from a parent and a staff person
“This is the best field trip I’ve been on.”
“Well thought out and planned activities set up for youth to make their own choices- really gives them freedom.”
“The day was a blast!”
“Youth are still talking about the field trip.” (A week after the event)
Marlys Daugherty
RCMG Volunteer