PITTSBURG, Kan. — Kindergarten students erupted with delight as they reenacted one of nature’s real-life dramas at the Nature Reach summer camp, Monday.

A universal childhood game became “foxes and rabbits,” a game of tag in which two students played the fox while the others had to run to the opposite side and escape getting tagged or else they would become the fox.

In another, less strenuous, activity, the group took a walk to the reserve’s garden where they learned about different kinds of plants and even got a gander at the chickens.

Nature Reach is an environmental education and natural history outreach program run by the Pittsburg State University Biology Department. Its summer camps for kids, held at PSU’s natural history reserve several miles southwest of Pittsburg, offer youngsters an opportunity to engage in hands-on, nature-based learning along with outside play and interactions with live animals.

Nature Reach Director Delia Lister explained what the students were learning.

“Today is all about learning lifecycles, the way they can find out in nature,” Lister said. “So, we are learning a little bit about everything. A little bit about birds, a little bit about insects, mammals. Right now, they are learning about how a fox can eat a rabbit, for example ... With the older kids, each day has a different theme and so Monday, for example, was all about birds. 

“Tuesday was all about plants, so it all just depending on the day is what we are going to learn about. I hope they do learn something,” said Nature Reach Director Delia Lister. “I hope they have fun in nature and learn that there’s an amazing world around them that they can spend time looking at everything from bugs to birds.” 

Kids are known to have fun at the Nature Reach summer camp. So much fun, in fact, that campers tend to return to the reserve to teach or help out.

“It’s really fun to see the kids, especially with the day camp of year after year, a lot of the kids once they age out want to come back and be a camp helper and my helper Meg (Norman), she’s actually my intern for the summer, and she started it in first grade as a camper,” said Lister. 

For more information on future PSU summer camps, visit pittstate.edu/office/ticket-office/summer-camps.html.

This reporting is made possible, in part, by the Support Local Journalism Project Fund. Learn more at: southeastkansas.org/Localnews.