The Rookery

Our trip to the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum was a huge success.  We began at the twig structure by Patrick Dougherty (you may remember his "Twigonometry" at Carleton.  Although it was cold, students eagerly took pencils in hand to sketch.  The sketch books were rarely put away all morning as we explored a labyrinth, turned our friends into human cameras, made a sound map and sketched the small wonders we found as we hiked through the arboretum.

I think the students are beginning to understand that the purpose of the nature journal isn't to become a better artist but to become a better observer.  One sees the world differently when one is looking as an artist does, trying to guide one's pencil to re-create the world.  Suddenly the textures, shapes, and nuances of an object come to the foreground.  Even our understanding of manmade objects, such as the labyrinth we encountered, becomes deeper when we try to draw them through observation.  I also found the students were looking harder for interesting things as we walked — calling our attention to the coin patterns etched into the bottom of a drained fountain, the brilliant red of over ripe crabapples and the strange shape of a twisted conifer tree.

We ended at the large hedge maze.  Students chose to explore it using either the "Wall Follower" algorithm or "Tremaux's Theorem."  Both approaches brought students to the solution — none of the Herons was surprised by this, however.  A spirited game of "Minotaur" then broke out and more than one student insisted that we had to come back.

Many thanks to our chaperones who cheerfully drove, sketched and explored with us.  This was my first smart phone enabled field trip in which a child's queery ("Michelle, what's the center of a labyrinth called?") could be answered in moments.  I also had many pictures waiting in my in-box by the time I got back to PCCS thanks to their speedy texting thumbs.  As the sideways images above indicate, I'm still working on some of the technical issues.

Your children were a delight to spend the day with and represented Prairie Creek very well.