Campers at SPREE got “tangled in the food web,” exploring connections between the sun, plants, animals, and our environment.
We started the week learning about the power of the sun. We planted our own bean seeds and watched them begin to grow. Throughout the week, we created and added parts of the food web to mobiles that campers took home at the end of the week. We studied herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores in part through examining skulls and pelts. Campers got creative with clay and craft materials to make their own imaginary herbivore.
Later, we took our questions and knowledge down to the water and caught crawdads and studied aquatic plants. We explored the interconnections within the food web and how an ecosystem can change with the addition of a beaver dam or the removal of an apex predator, like wolves.
We also had fun exploring nearby parks through a field day. SPREE HQ campers got to visit Overland Pond Park and campers downtown visited Commons Park.
We closed the week by looking at some overlooked parts of the ecosystem- scavengers, decomposers, and parasites. We studied bacteria we had collected in petri dishes. Campers made their own snails, conducted a decomposer investigation in the soil, and learned about leeches down by the water.
Thanks to all for another fun week of camp!
