Audubon campers immerse themselves in mud and education

By Tim Goodwin - Jul 29, 2014 | 0 comments

Another big discovery, a frog that is still in a hybrid state, with a bit of tadpole tale remaining.

One of the day’s big discoveries – this bug!

Isabella Mackenzie digs through her net to see what she found – besides muddy leaves and brown gunky stuff.

Royce Ferland offers a lily pad to the campers on shore.

Counselor Madeline Champlin (middle) leads Randall Bundy and Cameron Burgess into the mucky muck.

Margaret Sheehan, Carter Brennan and Connor Anderson check out some plant life with counselor Emily Vulgamore.

It’s Wednesday afternoon and the N.H. Audubon Discovery Group campers are filthy. And we’re talking spray-down-with-a-garden-hose-and-a-bar-of-soap kind of filthy.

With Wilderness Ways week in full swing and Turkey Pond the location for the final festivities of the day, the mud and muck has taken over. But that’s the point of it all. This camp isn’t for the clean and neat. It’s about nature and all it has to offer. So the quest to find frogs, bugs, tadpoles and perhaps the Turkey Pond monster is on the agenda for this day, and the group of 6-to-9-year-olds have responded to the challenge. With pond scum spilling into the top of the water boots, and shorts and shirts soaked with water, it has made for some dirty clothes for parents to wash. Or maybe even just throw away – at least that’s what we’d probably do.

“Parents love it because they know their kids are learning stuff here,” said Ruth Smith, who spent 18 years as director of the Audubon day camp. “The trick with summer camp is to get the information across, but not feel like school.”

It’s worth it for this group of kids. Not only are they having a blast among the lily pads with their nets and jars, one even lost his knee high water boot when it got sucked down into the mud (or maybe it was the above referenced pond monster.) Luckily, camp counselor Madeline Champlin came to the rescue and retrieved the boot, needing her full right arm to get it.

“It’s an opportunity for them to explore new areas,” counselor Allyson Lewko said. “The best part is when they’re out and about. They’re not just stuck on campus. They’re here enjoying the outside.”

And one day some of these campers will turn into leaders in training or counselors like Lewko. She began going to the Audubon camp as a kid and is still a part of it.

“I started when I was five,” Lewko said. “I’m now 22.”

It was the fun of it all that kept her coming back.

“When I was a kid I just absolutely loved the idea of being outside and learning about nature,” Lewko said.

But splashing around in the pond is just one of the many fun (and educational) activities the campers got to participate in last week. In addition to the pond searching, they also tested out their mini water crafts built that morning to simulate how to survive if surrounded by water. And since it was survival week, there were lessons about extreme weather, nature’s edibles and how to build a shelter. There’s also the idea of STOP – slow down, think, observe and plan, a lesson of what to do when you get lost in the wild.

“We just don’t teach them how to get lost,” Lewko joked.

And that’s just one week worth of stuff. Over the course of the summer, the Audubon offers six different programs, ranging from five to nine days each, with Water Wizards and Earth Heroes still to go. Now can you think of a better way to spend a week than learning about wizards and heroes? We didn’t think so, especially when you add in all the nature stuff.

“A lot of what we do is hands on learning,” Smith said. “You’re not just a student behind a desk.”

The Wonders Camp, for ages 4 and 5, is a half-day program giving the little campers an introduction to nature. Discovery is a full day and includes trips around the Audubon Center, and the Explorers Camp, for 10- to-12-year-olds, is a week filled with field trips to various locations throughout the state, with adventures like hiking and canoeing. The day camps are open to children ages 4 to 12 and are separated into the three groups to best execute the lesson plans. But don’t worry, your children will have so much fun they won’t even realize they’re actually learning.

For instance, take games like Predator/Prey. It’s a play off tag, but at the same time all the campers are learning about the food chain and how nature works.

“That’s a game I brought to the camp decades ago, but they’re still playing it because everyone loves it,” Smith said.

There are limited spots available for the upcoming weeks. To learn more about the camps, visit nhaudubon.org/programs/camps/summer-camp.