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Last week, fourth and fifth grade Lakeside students were treated to an educational opportunity brought to them through the efforts of teachers Elizabeth LaVoie and Shanda Waller.

The duo applied for and received a $1,450 grant through The Environmental Learning in Minnesota Grant Program, enabling them to bring naturalist Jenna Ingersoll to the school. Ingersoll is an intern at the Audobon Center of the North Woods in Sandstone, MN.

Normally, classes would have to take field trips to Sandstone to attend environmental learning classes from naturalists there. Because of the grant, the naturalist-in-residence program brought the class to Lakeside.

LaVoie said they applied for the grant because they wanted a way to focus on the valuable natural resources right outside the school's backdoor.

"We have acreage here with woods and a lake that are never used in the educational process," LaVoie said.

Waller and LaVoie applied for the grant last fall, with the purpose of increasing science scores, along with student awareness and knowledge of interactions in natural systems.

Ingersoll spent the week visiting with each of the fourth and fifth grade classrooms, leading students on an environmental scavenger hunt, helping them make naturalist journals, studying birds and taking walks outside to study animal tracks.

They also spent time in the classroom looking at similarities between humans and animals, and studied samples of animal feet to try and figure out things about the animals and how they live.

Outside the school, Ingersoll took each classroom around the woods and open areas to examine animal tracks and signs in the mud and snow. They talked about the squirrels, mice, opposum and other animals that may live in the wooded area, and why.

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