Fresno: Scout Island

San Joaquin River

       I have been to Scout Island three times in the past few years and I am so pleased with how everything is so well coordinated for all the occasions I went there for.  For those of you who do not know what Scout Island is, it is a Fresno County of Education Office property similar to a national park.  Once you enter, you abide by the rule of not harming or picking anything alive such as not picking any plants or catching any animals.  The animals and plants are local to this habitat.  

One of the many trails at Scout Island

This is a Sweet Gum branch.  It was found near the San Joaquin River which was far from the origination of the Sweet Gum Tree.  We concluded as a class that this would be an item critters or birds would use to build their nest because of the soft pom-poms at the end.

Wild Flowers

Wild Berry

Scout Island is used for team building exercises, environmental education, and for discipline.  This place is cater to students of all ages.  Last year, when I was at Scout Island, I had the opportunity to chaperone a station where students were instructed to build a hydraulic wheel using certain materials with limitations.  This was an innovative team building exercise the students constructed together while applying the knowledge they had learned in class into a real-life application.  

Obstacle Course

Every time I go to Scout Island, I always have such a great time.  For my recent visit, I participated in multiple physical education science activities from the three books sponsored by Project Learning Tree These books were then given to us as a token of thanks for attending the even.  It was also hosted by two amazing professors from California State University of Fresno: Professor Steve Bock and Professor Lisa Nyberg.  I want to thank these two professors for coming out on their busy schedule on this cold windy day to co-teach for us and for setting up these fun lessons.  They put in so much hard work in making all of us have a great time.  Thank You!  

 I will insert pictures from the day below and talking about the activities.

Oh Dear! 

This is a simulation game where students will learn how a population of an animal can change over time through various obstacles.  In this simulation a fifth of the class were a deer.  The other 4/5 were the land the deer lives will be living in.  That will be located on the opposite side. Both sides are to turn their backs around and pick whether they will will be shelter (by making a triangle over their head), water (by cupping their hands in front of their mouth), and food (by placing their hands on their tummy).  When the instructor says you can turn around, both sides turn around and face each other.  If you are a deer that is hungry then your job is to WALK across to your environment to find someone who has their hands on their tummy while you also doing the same.  

Oh Deer!

Our next activity was HUG-A-TREE.  We were broken off into pairs.  One was blind folded while the other was leading the way to a tree.  Once you are at the tree, you let the blind use their sense of touch to examine the tree.  Then the person who is not blind folded will lead the one who is blind back to the start line and take off the blind fold.  The blind folded person will guess which tree was the one they touched.  

Here, we had a short twenty minute seminar about wooden cookies.  There were many fascinating facts I learned.  After this seminar, we then made a tree with the whole class.  Each person was assigned to be a specific part that makes up the tree.

This game is called Predator and Prey.  There are four predators and the rest of the class are the bunnies.   Our goal is to get to the other side three times and back while retrieving a sticky note which is our food source without getting caught by the predator.  Once the predator tags you, they will escort you to their den.  There will be hula-hoops on the ground as a safe zone for the preys.  If the preys are not moving, the predator cannot get them.

This was the final simulation or activity we did.  This drawing is the general layout of the game.  We are all salmons trying to go into the ocean then come back to spawn and lay our eggs.  However, only a small percentage of salmon actually makes it back.  This game puts into action the life cycle of a salmon for the students to experience.  It was very enjoyable.