While students may lament the notion of classes six days a week, faculty love the reality of unique, in-depth field experiences afforded by Saturday classes. This past Saturday, Sarah McIntyre's '90 Zoology class took a short hike into the Proctor woodlot to a small stream just off Estin Trail (surveyed and cut by Alumni President Alex Estin '83 during her senior project more than thirty years ago!).



The Guardian published this article in early December highlighting the diminishing ability of schools to provide field trips to students despite the proven research out-of-the-classroom learning is hugely beneficial to student performance. At Proctor, we are fortunate to avoid this problem, both because our academic schedule provides for students/teachers to take frequent field trips and because our 3,000 acre campus provides a plethora of opportunities for field study.

For this Zoology class of twelve students, Saturday's field trip not only allowed for class outside on a beautiful 60 degree spring day before the black flies hatch, but also afforded the opportunity to directly use the the identification and habitat research skills they have been learning in class over the past months.



As students descended the final hill to the small stream, members of each research group pulled on rubber boots and got to work gathering five samples from the river, identifying those samples and then comparing the species collected to previous years with the ultimate goal of being able to identify and comment on the water quality of the stream.

The following video gives a brief synopsis of the morning spent in field study, an opportunity I certainly would have loved as a high school student, and one that these current students value as the content (literally!) comes alive in front of them!