Area youths participating in 2016 Asylum Lake Adventure Day
KALAMAZOO, Mich.—About 100 third graders from Kalamazoo County will use Western Michigan University's Asylum Lake Preserve as an outdoor classroom this month.
The students will be at the preserve for the sixth annual Asylum Lake Adventure Day, set for 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, May 10, or in case of rain, Wednesday, May 11.
The day will bring together students from Mattawan Later Elementary School and El Sol Elementary School. Last month, a similar event was held at WMU's Kleinstuck Preserve and hosted another 100 students from Mattawan Early Elementary School and the Kalamazoo Public Schools' Woodward School for Technology and Research.
Asylum Lake Adventure Day is part of the Kalamazoo Nature Center's Outside While Learning—OWL—program. It is a cooperative event between the nature center and WMU's landscape services department with support from the University's Office of the President.
About 20 WMU students and community volunteers will assist during the event, and Buster Bronco, WMU's mascot, will spend time outdoors with the kids.
Some volunteers will serve as naturalists, offering hands-on environmental lessons at educational stations set up throughout the Asylum Lake Preserve. Others will act as nature guides, leading the participating children, teachers and parents between stations along the preserve's network of trails.
One station will focus on trees while another is on the shore of Asylum Lake , where the children will take water samples and study pond ecology. Two other stations focus on general skill building and help students to improve their writing through journaling as well as to exercise leadership through activities that bring youngsters from different schools together.
Asylum Lake Adventure Day
The day is a service-learning component of the OWL program. As such, it recognizes that children who have positive experiences outside are more likely to become conservation stewards. It aims to get area youngsters outdoors to explore, observe, appreciate and connect with each other and the natural environment in and around their schoolyards.
OWL started as a pilot project in 2010 named Outside in Our Schoolyard that involved 68 students from three schools. About 150 students from four schools have been involved with the program in its five subsequent years. The program grew out of the Kalamazoo Nature Center's No Child Left Inside Initiative and is a partnership among the nature center, WMU, and the participating schools and school districts, with funding support coming from the Kalamazoo Community Foundation and private donors.
About the Asylum Lake Preserve
The 274-acre Asylum Lake Preserve is owned by WMU and managed by the University in conjunction with the communitywide Asylum Lake Policy and Management Council. Located on the northeast corner of Parkview Avenue and Drake Road, it is part of the Arcadia Creek-Portage Creek Watershed and the broader Kalamazoo River Watershed.
The preserve encompasses Asylum Lake and Little Asylum Lake and is open to the public as a passive-use recreation area under an agreement between the University and city of Kalamazoo. In addition to supporting research and education at all school levels, the property is used by many area residents as a place for bird watching, running, walking, cross country skiing, swimming and fishing.
Additional information
Direct event questions to Jennifer Metz Brenneman, Kalamazoo Nature Center experiential education director, at jmetz@naturecenter.org or (269) 381-1574, extension 24, or to Steve Keto, WMU natural areas and preserves manager, at steve.keto@wmich.edu or (269) 760-9023.
More information about the preserve is available at wmich.edu/asylumlake. For more about the Kalamazoo Nature Center, visit naturecenter.org.
For more news, arts and events, visit wmich.edu/news.