Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 18, 1994 TAG: 9404190012
SECTION: NEWSFUN PAGE: NF-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By WENDI GIBSON RICHERT STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
There are, however, six miles of trails to hike, eight streams to wade, a ceiling of clouds, walls of trees and a floor of wildflowers. Deer, skunks, squirrels and garter snakes live here, and there are signs that a black bear has wandered through the classroom, too.
This classroom is Virginia's Explore Park, a wooded living history park tucked seven miles away from the big buildings and rushing traffic of downtown Roanoke. This park is different from others in your neighborhood, though. People come here to learn about the environment, how we can improve it and how people lived in a time when it wasn't so polluted.
Learning at Explore is more fun than reading a textbook, and probably more memorable, too. It is a quiet place where people can experience nature and history. The only sounds that pierce the park, in fact, are the cock-a-doodle-doo of the roosters who live there and the hammers that bang at nails as old wooden buildings are reassembled.
Besides the woods and wildlife, Explore Park is home to the Blue Ridge Settlement, a reconstructed village from the 1800s. The old barn houses two pigs and the roosters. More animals, such as horses, will come to live there later. A small cabin that was built in Roanoke in 1834 has been rebuilt on the settlement. Inside are fireplaces for cooking, a loom for weaving and examples of toys children played with back then. An old schoolhouse also is being reassembled.
While the park won't open to the public until July, children from regional schools have been touring it and learning from it for almost three years.
Last Monday, teachers Jennifer Davison and Peggy Spyhalski brought their fourth -graders from Roanoke's Oakland Intermediate School on a field trip to the park. On their tour, they walked nearly two miles on a cold, damp morning, stopping to learn about rocks, plants, water and wildlife.
Jim Baldwin, the park's naturalist (someone who studies nature), led them on their hike through the woods. Baldwin stopped often to talk about the stones, insects, plants and animal habitats.
As the fourth -graders hiked up and over the hills, Baldwin asked questions about what they were seeing. One recognized deer tracks. Another found an Eastern box turtle. Baldwin pointed out a bear's claw marks on a tree and a bloodroot plant whose dark red roots were used by American Indians to make war paint and by fiddle makers to stain their instruments. He even broke apart a clump of aphid droppings that had fallen from a tree, something most agreed was gross, but fascinating, nonetheless.
When their tour through the woods ended, the classes gathered around the cabin and barn to learn how people lived in the 1800s.
Laurie and Scott Spangler, dressed as the Hofaugers, the couple who built the cabin, told them about the settlement. They explained how the barn and cabin were built, what animals lived on the farm, and how the Hofaugers lived with only a couple of outfits each, no electricity and no running water.
Fourth-grader Frederico Tonete's favorite part of the trip was learning about the cows the Hofaugers had. What Tiffanie Ross remembered best was learning about the rocks, plants and nature. Pha-Beanna Lawson said her tour of Explore taught her about ``knowing the territory and not to mess it up.''
Explore teaches more, too. While Mondays are nature days, other days of the week concentrate on the aspects of life in the 1800s. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, for example, students can meet blacksmiths, basketmakers, candlemakers, storytellers and old-time musicians. Or they might talk to someone who makes herbal remedies such as those the Hofaugers would have taken for their illnesses.
Even as kids wander through the park every week, the outdoor classroom serves more than just them. Explore Park is also a classroom for Baldwin and others who work there.
``I'm always studying,'' Baldwin says. ``The saying `The more you learn, the more you know you need to learn' applies perfectly to a naturalist. There's not a day that goes by that we don't learn something or reinforce something we've already learned.''
by CNB