On the first day back for Term 2, Tuesday, 27 to Wednesday, 28 April, the Year 4 students were lucky enough to attend Arbury Park Outdoor School in Bridgewater for their first school camp.
Arbury Park Outdoor School is built on 32 hectares of prime land in the beautiful Adelaide Hills. It includes a stringy bark forest, a gully with a series of ponds and wetlands, as well as open woodland areas. Our focus for this year’s camp was to allow the students to develop new skills in a challenging yet safe environment.
When we arrived at camp the students began their exploring with a quick walk around the camp and a ‘Discovering Arbury Park’ orienteering course. It was then onto the 'Web of Life' game, where participants learnt about food chains and the role of predators and their prey. Later than night we went up to a viewing platform to see the supermoon rise above the horizon. After a lovely dinner, Mr Fosdike took the group for a night hike that was enjoyed by all.
The next day saw an early morning start followed by another lovely meal. We then split into groups to learn about campfire cooking and freshwater life. The students learnt how to safely create a fire and cook twist damper over the hot coals. Freshwater life had the students looking in the ponds and using nets to catch bugs, insects and even tadpoles! We then went to the lab and used microscopes and cameras to observe the invertebrates we had caught, and explore their feeding relationships, adaptations for survival and the habitat requirements for survival in a freshwater biome.
A special thank you to Mr Ryan, Sarah Chandler and Jasmin Munro (student teachers) for the support at camp. We would also like to thank Mr. Fosdike for coming up and leading our night hike.
A few highlights included:
- the wonderful food at camp
- sleeping with friends in the dorms
- playing on the nature playground
- “Claude” the cockatoo
- making fire
- spending time with friends
Thank you to all the Year 4 students for making this year’s camp such an enjoyable experience. Your excellent manners, enthusiasm for new challenges and sense of joy made it one of the best camps we have ever been on.
Sam Baxter and Tom Fosdike, Year 4 Classroom Teachers
