Take a Child Outside Week

This week is Take a Child Outside Week (www.takeachildoutside.org) and coincidentally also starts Tanglewood's portion of the Chemung Riverwalk. It is a program that has been going on for over 10 years, but enough people don't know about it. It is run by the Arnot Art Museum and spans the whole school year. The Museum coordinates 4th grade classes from Elmira, Elmira Heights and Horseheads. They also coordinate naturalists, musicians, poets, historians and artists. All who take part in Riverwalk spend their time focusing on the River and its historical and present day importance.

This week and next, Tanglewood meets with the students at the Chemung River and then in their classrooms. We teach them about the water cycle, pollution, arthropods and other animal life, food webs, trees, flooding...all manner of topics that relate to the River. Over the course of the next two weeks, we will have met well over 200 students and have gotten every one of them outside and hopefully enthusiastic about being there. We meet with the kids again in May to compare changes in the River habitat from Fall to Spring and we also get to see the students growing up and changing too!

Riverwalk is a terrific program that is truly relevant to curriculum and to the kids' own lives. It gets students outdoors and it gives them exposure to art and culture and an appreciation for the world around them that they can't get in the classroom.

The first meeting at the River for us was yesterday. It was a beautiful day, the kids were excited to be there and so was I. As we were ending the day and walking back to the buses, one young man from Cohen looked at me after spending some time trying to catch insects and spiders and said "I had fun today, I have never used anything like an insect net before." Makes it all worth it.