MCIU's Environmental Mobile Unit recently visited Conshohocken Elementary
Conshohocken Elementary School students used four of their five senses to explore nature in a program brought to the school by the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit’s Environment Mobile Unit (or EMU) and Leigh Kieser, otherwise known as The EMU Lady.
While looking at their neighborhood, the students talked about living and nonliving things, habitats, and biomes. They used seeing, hearing, touching, and smelling and wrote or drew what they discovered.
Back on the playground, they passed around naturally occurring items like pinecones, eggs, rocks, shells, and fossils.
“My favorite thing was the coral,” said CE first grader Danny Lynch. He also shared that the coral was once a living thing.
“I like feeling the rocks,” said CE first grader Ryan Straub-Wallace. “Because rocks have different textures, so whenever you feel it, it feels like all rocks are different.”
The EMU Lady reviewed the “three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”, and shared that there are now five new Rs, including “Remember the need, Refuse, Refill, Repair, and Regift”. However, the students’ biggest takeaway was much broader than that.
“You should explore nature, because you can learn new stuff about it,” said CE first grader Owen Rehmann. “And you can get better at science if you’re not really good at science.”
The visit from the MCIU’s Environmental Mobile Unit and The EMU Lady was covered by a grant from the Colonial School District Education Foundation.