Environmental Education (EE) Grades: 3rd & 4th Cost: See Booking Request Form Duration: 4 hours Sessions: Spring and Fall     Environmental Education /Team Development Combination Grades: 5th & 6th Cost: See Booking Request Form Duration: 6 hours Sessions: Fall, Spring, Summer How do I book a program? Booking Request Forms Summer 2007 - Spring 2008 Fall 2008 - Spring 2009 Hemlock Overlook Regional Park is located close by in southern Fairfax County, but feels very far away from the busy world we live in every day. The Center for Outdoor Education offers a unique opportunity for students to extend their classroom learning to an outdoor laboratory. With forests and fields, streams and a pond, and many trails to explore, Hemlock Overlook is a wonderful place to learn about and enjoy the outdoors. Our Environmental Education programs are designed to enhance and extend classroom studies, or provide an introduction to a new topic. All programs are hands-on, inquiry based formats, where students are observing their natural environment, collecting data, collecting specimens, experimenting, and drawing conclusions about what they have found. The Earth Quest lessons are based on the Curriculum Framework for the SOL to support your classroom objectives.   Programs Introduce your 3rd and 4th grade students to Hemlock Overlook's experiential outdoor classroom. Our 4.5 hour programs are designed around the Virginia Standards of Learning for your science and history curriculum. In small groups, students rotate through four EarthQuest  stations located throughout our beautiful park. Learn, laugh and get outside while reviewing your SOLs.   3RD GRADE PROGRAM Soils Station: See the recycling and decomposition process of the forest and how a tree is turned into topsoil. Water Cycle Station: Down at the pond, investigate and understand the water cycle and its relationship to life on Earth. Investigation Station: Use observations, predictions and data gathering to answer questions about the state of our natural resources. Life Forces Station: On a hunt through the woods, see the adaptations that plants and animals have made to respond to life needs. 4TH GRADE PROGRAM Investigation Station: Development continues to encroach on the land surrounding our park resulting in a resource management issue. Students will investigate the park and make predictions about the future. Resources Station: Students come together to discuss the resources management issue in a town meeting forum. Life Processes Station: Up close and personal with a tree, students study the structure of typical plants by becoming a working part of one. Living Systems Station: This hands-on station gives the students a chance to investigate park wildlife and learn about energy flow through food webs. NATIVE AMERICAN DAY This six hour program takes students through six stations where they learn about primitive skills used by the eastern woodland Indians. Students are divided into "tribes" where they experience each of the following hands-on stations. Shelter Building Cooking Animal Tracking Sensory Awareness Friction Fires Team Building At day’s end, the tribes gather for dinner at our Lodge. A campfire follows.   Day Programs-5TH and 6TH GRADES We currently offer Earth Quest lessons for 5th and 6th graders as part of a Combination Program with our Team Development Course. A full 6 hour program would include: 2 hour Earth Quest program (Choose 1 of 3 topics listed below) and 4 hours of Team Development - Includes the Zip Wire. Landforms (5TH GRADE SOL) Explore hills and valleys to gain an understanding of the forces of weathering and erosion. Students will see first -hand the transformation of rock into soil, and determine which rocks in the Rock Cycle are found in the park. Watershed Conservation/Stream Monitoring (6TH GRADE SOL) Investigate the physical and biological properties of a pond or stream ecosystem. Students will collect and identify live macro-invertebrates to determine the health of the local water supply. Students will discuss how their lifestyle impacts the local watershed. General Ecology (5TH or 6TH GRADE SOL) Apply the concepts of ecology to the natural environment found at Hemlock Overlook. Students will see structural and behavioral adaptation at work, explore the food chain, use sensory awareness skills to study the plants they find, identify habitats, discuss communities, experiment with predator / prey relationships. Dinner, a campfire, or overnight stay can be added to any day program for a small additional fee.