Courtney Cheers addressed the small group of Cherry Creek Elementary fifth-graders gathered at her feet.
“What are some things you would bring with you on a trip into the woods?” asked Cheers, director of the Wittenbach/Wege Environmental Agriscience Center.
A sword for hunting — for food, offered Braden Bierling.
“And if you get that food, what are you going to do with it then?” Cheers asked.
“Take off the skin and cook it,” answered Corey Bennett.
“How will you cook it?” Cheers asked.
“Start a fire!” answered Hope Kilbourn.
“How?” Cheers asked, in a reversed rendition of every seemingly never-ending adult-child conversation.
“These are all things to think about before you go into the woods, or any time you leave your house,” she told them. “You should ask yourself, ‘Do I have what I need?'”
All district fifth-graders — about 200 students — visit the center this time of year for a day of winter survival lessons.
Though it was hardly the frozen wonderland it typically is outdoors, they still had ample opportunities to learn how to build a fire to keep warm with and without matches, how to use a compass and how to build a temporary shelter.
Cheers said the annual lesson aligns with fifth-graders’ physical science curriculum, as well as with English. Most classes are reading the book, “Hatchet,” about a 13-year-old who survives in the woods for nearly two months on his own.
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