Metolius Hike

by Conner (grade 8)

The Metolius is a great place to hike and was wonderful for our first field studies class. We played games, hiked, and learned a lot on this trip. We hiked from school downstream and turned around at Allingham Bridge, and walked back on the other side of the river.

On our hike our main topic was “we are connected to everything.” We talked about how we are connected with animals and plants who share our habitat with us. All of us listened about what we eat and who might eat us. Also we talked about where we live and what people need to survive. We are connected to a lot in the environment.

Along the way we played some games, like camouflage and human knot. Camouflage is a game where one person is an owl who stands in their perch, they can only move in a one foot radius circle. The owl tries to find all the mice who are hiding (the mice have to stay where they can see the owl). Once the owl gives up he/she would yell "forest fire" so all the mice will come out. For human knot everyone grabs another person’s right hand across the circle and then next grabs someone’s left hand across the circle. Then we tried to untangle ourselves back into a circle. Both games were fun and taught us more about how everything is connected.

All in all we had lots of fun hiking, playing games, and learning about our environment. We all learned that we are connected to a lot. The Metolius was a beautiful place to explore these things.