Experience North Carolina's state parks with EELEs

An EELE is an Environmental Education Learning Experience -- a site-specific program offered by the North Carolina state parks system. EELEs include pre-visit activities, on-site activities and post-visit activities, but they do not necessarily have to be used in conjunction with a group visit. Educators can attend EELE workshops to gain rich educational experiences that provide knowledge, insight, and immediate practical materials for use in the classroom.

By Linda Dow

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Related pages

• Carolina Beach State Park: Developed in the late 1960s, this state park preserves the unique environment along the Intracoastal Waterway. The Venus Flytrap and other plant life, the dunes, birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals are all protected in this special place.
• Clemmons Educational State Forest: Take students to a ranger conducted program and learn about the plants and animals that can be found in this state educational forest.
• Lake Waccamaw State Park: Students will learn about the Carolina Bays, "one of the greatest geological mysteries of the eastern United States" when they visit Lake Waccamaw State Park.

Related topics

• Learn more about Carolina Beach, Crowders Mountain, Fort Macon, Mount Mitchell, North Carolina, Venus flytraps, alpine forests, barrier islands, carnivorous plants, ecology, ecosystems, environment, environmental education, field trips, hands-on learning, monadnocks, and state parks.

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Environmental Education Learning Experiences

The North Carolina State Parks system’s mission statement reads:

The North Carolina state parks system exists for the enjoyment, education, health and inspiration of all our citizens and visitors. The mission of the state parks system is to conserve and protect representative examples of the natural beauty, ecological features and recreational resources of statewide significance; to provide outdoor recreational opportunities in a safe and healthy environment; and to provide environmental education opportunities that promote stewardship of the state’s natural heritage.

To that end, recreation and wildlife areas and state parks have been established throughout North Carolina. Each property in the system was chosen because it held a particular, unique geological or ecological feature around which an interpretive theme could be designed.

Subsequently, workshops called EELEs were created and continue to be developed and improved. An EELE is an Environmental Education Learning Experience. EELEs are site-specific. In other words, they are designed to focus on the unique aspects of each park.

Every EELE includes a written guide that contains a collection of well-designed, inquiry-based lesson plans. The original intent was to use them in facilitating a planned field trip to a state park. Therefore, they include pre-visit activities, on-site activities and post-visit activities. However, they do not necessarily have to be used in conjunction with a group visit.

As the science specialist for my entire school, I was never in a position to bring a group of students to any of the sites. Nevertheless, I found the workshops to be rich educational experiences that consistently provided me with knowledge, insight, and immediate practical materials. I would attend an EELE and return to my school, armed with loads of good information and quality lesson plans.

Most of the EELE guides are available through ERIC — the online digital library of education research and information — so you could, conceivably, take advantage of the lesson plans without ever visiting a state park.

However, the material is so much more meaningful when you’ve been to the site in person and benefited from the wonderful, hands-on explorations that the state parks offer. When you attend an EELE, you might receive the EELE guide on a compact disc or in a three-ring binder. They are yours to keep, to take back, and to use in your own classroom.

There are more than thirty sites offering EELEs at this time. More are being developed and the number continues to grow. The workshop opportunities are frequent and diverse.

For example, the wetland in Carolina Beach State Park supports a healthy population of Sundew and Pitcher Plants. It is part of the exclusive area where the Venus Fly Trap grows wild. The EELE at this site is called “Plants That Bite Back” – a study of carnivorous plants. It includes a fascinating hike along boardwalks built to protect the fragile ecosystem.

The EELE at Mount Mitchell is called “Alpine Forests” and focuses on the various stresses that have resulted in changes in forest communities and the on-going conservation efforts.

The Fort Macon State Park’s EELE explores the dynamic geological features of a barrier island, while the EELE at Fort Fisher State Recreation Center looks at colony-nesting birds like the egret, heron, ibis, and tern.

In addition to the EELE guides, it is inevitable that throughout these workshops, you and other participants will be inspired to share even more lesson plan ideas with each other.

Crowders Mountain EELE

I recently attended the EELE called “Twin Peaks Monadnocks” at Crowders Mountain State Park. It is a geology-based EELE targeting grades 5 to 7 but the lesson plans could be easily adapted for use in early elementary grades.

Crowders Mountain is a monadnock — a rock formation that is leftover after millions of years of erosion. The area surrounding Crowders Mountain is referred to as a peneplain. It was originally the same height as the mountain peak; but was less dense and therefore, wore away, leaving the massive hard rock hill.

We began our workshop with a lecture by a few park rangers that described the geologic history of the area.

Ranger Brian referred to a large chart, which depicted the geologic time scale. As he elaborated on the events during a sampling of periods, a volunteer came forward to add a summary of those events to the appropriate place on the chart.

We learned that during the Cambrian period, many of the first animal fossils were formed and that it was during the Carboniferous period that geologists believe the North American and African continents collided. This tremendous force heaved and folded the land to form the Appalachian Mountains.

It occurred to me that this lecture and chart could easily be adapted to a classroom setting. Depending on the age of the students, the summaries could be written by the students or provided on a worksheet. As the students discover the events, the summaries could be placed in the correct order on individual geologic time scales. Even very young students could fill in a chart with pictures depicting events during several geologic periods.

Hands-on activities

Following the lecture, we entered a classroom and were given crayons, vegetable peelers, scissors, and aluminum foil. We were divided into groups, each with its own crayon color.

We were instructed to chop and shred the crayons into a pile. This would represent the crushing and weathering of rock.

We borrowed from each of the other groups and layered the shredded crayons on a piece of aluminum foil. Then, we folded the aluminum foil to enclose our layers of shredded “rock” and put this package into a bench vise. The pressure we applied was compared to the pressure underground during the rock cycle.

The result was a crumbly, albeit more solid, cake of layered material. This was to simulate sedimentary rock.

More pressure was applied to represent metamorphic rock. The result was a harder piece of material with various intrusions of color among the layers.

To simulate igneous rock, the solid masses were melted over a hot plate. We poured some into water to observe how igneous rock might form as lava flows through a crack in the ocean floor. We poured some “lava” among ice cubes — representing a cold climate and lava flowing over hard, cold rock. We poured some of the melted material onto the layered crayon that represented sedimentary rock.

These very clear visuals made real and obvious the concept of various processes of rock formation.

We tried several other activities from the EELE guide. One was like a scavenger hunt. We matched household products with the minerals that might be found in them. We also determined the properties of several rocks and minerals using the scratch test, luster, and streak tests. All of these activities were clearly written in lesson plan form in the guide.

To top it off

After our classroom activities, Ranger Dan took us for a hike. We were going to the top of the mountain. As we climbed, we stopped along the way to examine several interesting rock outcrops and other geological features of the mountain, to admire the ever-improving view, and to catch our breath.

Once we reached the summit, it was the view itself that was breathtaking. Ranger Dan said that on a clear day, the view reaches out in a twenty-mile radius from the peak.

As with all of the EELEs I’ve attended, I came away from Crowders Mountain State Park with new inspiration and insight and a renewed enthusiasm to share what I’d learned.

Links

• A search of all available EELEs can be found at the North Carolina State Parks website.
• The North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation publishes an online calendar of EELE workshops. You can find the workshop nearest you, or one that fits your curriculum or personal interests.