Thursday, September 26, 2013

6th Grade Goes to Mt. Lassen


On September 9th the Sixth Grade left to spend the week in Lassen Volcanic National Park. Their teacher, Laurence Jacquet, former High School Outdoor Educator Ellie Capers, and several parents accompanied the children. Upon return, the children wrote reflections in their main lesson books. Some are excerpted here.

Reflections on my Field Trip to Mt. Lassen

On September 9th my class and I went on a field trip to Mt. Lassen. Mt. Lassen is a very beautiful place and I enjoyed hiking up a cinder cone, going into a lava tube in the utter darkness, and seeing stars every night. The thing that was so different and an absolutely wonderful experience was having a solo (and no, it is not a singing solo), it's a solo in nature where we have time to sketch the beautiful landscape, write or just sit there and enjoy nature. And while I was one who decided to write a while, I came up with the poem "Nature".

Nature

I watch the grass around me move low on the ground
I see the trees calm and still, silent on the rocks.
I watch as the stillness comes across the mountain tops,
the ski is clear and blue,
the bees humming all around me fill me with the stillness brightly.
I sit among the rocks of basalt, later in the day
I see the clouds start to move across the mountain range.
I lay my head down on a rock and look around me like a clock.
"Everything is so beautiful"
I think again, and try to take in the loveliness of
Nature.

-Athena



Reflections on my Field Trip to Mt. Lassen

On our field trip we went to the Subway Cave. It was formed a long time ago by a lava flow. The tunnel was formed because as the lava flowed, the outsides cooled creating a perfect tunnel, while the inside kept flowing down the mountain.
When I went through the tunnel, I experienced pitch-black darkness and chilly air. The walls were rather rough and the floor of the tunnel was rocky.
It was rather creepy walking through the darkness alone, with only my left hand on the wall to guide me.
Here is a small poem I wrote about the experience:

Darkness surrounds me
Coldness wraps round me
Silence engulfs me
Stones all around me.

-Sydney




My class and I went on a field trip to Mount Lassen.
We climbed a cinder cone, and walked through and walked through a cave. But the experience that I enjoyed the most was the solo hour.
Now, one might think that out of all the things I did, why would I pick sitting?
I picked the solo hour as my favorite experience because I never get the time to sit in nature, just sit, hearing nothing but the sound of the rushing water.
I believe that at Mount Lassen, nothing could have been better. It was truly a form of nature at its highest.
That is why, sitting by King's Creek Waterfall, I was inspired to write this descriptive paragraph.

At Its Highest
Soft flowing water rushes past high trees. Sounds of the water flowing fill the air, and utter peace was never so close. A sky, filled with soft white clouds covers the landscape like a blanket, beautiful and wholly complete. Thick air fills the emptiness, completing a form of nature at its highest.

As I wrote this paragraph, sitting on a beautiful rock, I noticed many rocks around me. Writing this now, I picture the rocks shooting out of a volcano as a mountain is being born, and I think: nature does not just appear. It takes many years to perfect. I do believe it is worth it to wait that long.

-Erin

Photos by Sam Lising

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