Life

Dana kids win grant to visit Sandburg kids

By Bill Moss, Published: May 29, 2015

Dana Elementary School has been awarded a Kids in Parks grant to visit the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site on Monday, May 29, for a Service Learning Project.

Second grade teacher Debra Clark has been engaged with the Kids in Parks program for several years and this is the third successful Kids in Parks grant that has been funded through the National Park Trust. This year the entire second grade class of 107 students will participate. The grant funded transportation and snacks for the visit. In return the students will “pay it forward” by participating in a stewardship project to clean park spaces and leave it better than they find it.
Students will also gain valuable learning experience by participating in a Citizen Science program which will involve monitoring milkweed plants for Monarch butterfly eggs and larvae. This information will later be entered into a data base, and with data collected through other volunteers will help protect necessary habitat for these important pollinators. The entire class also worked hard to complete the Carl Sandburg Home NHS Junior Ranger Booklet, which earned each student a Junior Ranger Badge and for the service project they were awarded a Junior Ranger Patch.

To round out the Kids in Parks day, the class will also participated in a curriculum-based education programs which include tours of the Sandburg home, visits with the descendants of Mrs. Sandburg’s champion dairy goat herd, poetry writing, and learning about careers in the National Park Service. The National Park Trust also provided award certificates and stickers for each student in addition to a classroom Buddy Bison.