San Simeon Forest

The San Simeon forest trail is a 3.5 mile loop traveling through coastal scrub, riparian, and pine forest communities. Along the way, students have a variety of opportunities to experience the forest and see its inhabitants. Ticks and Poison Oak are perennial favorites and can be found year round. They are an excellent example of animals and plants adapting well to their environments and can always be counted on to be interesting. There are the occasional bobcat and deer sightings, and winter brings migrating Monarch Butterflies. In the rainy season, students have a chance to catch and learn about Pacific Tree Frogs.

Naturalists use a variety of activities to teach students in interactive ways. Kids may act out the life of a tree, learn to teach each other in a "professor walk", or spend time doing some creative writing or drawing. What am I? riddles require students to choose a plant or animal that they saw during their hikes and write a cryptic riddle about it. Adaptation Fables require students to think of a plant or animal and describe how their adaptations came to be in an imaginary story.

During the second half of their day at San Simeon, students get a chance to learn about the Chumash, the Native American group that lived in this area. Students use materials they find on the beach to design and build a miniature Chumash village complete with huts, tools, food, and baskets. Following that, students have a lesson on sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks. In their closing activity, they learn to make paint from sedimentary rocks and create pictographs.

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Last update: Thursday, May 19, 2005 at 8:54:56 AM
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