Southern Forest World

Olivia's class took a short field trip to Southern Forest World last week.  Since the field trip only lasted about two hours- and since the location is less than a 10 minute drive from my school- I was able to go with her on this trip. I've never been able to go with either child on a field trip before, so I was psyched to get to go on this one.  Southern Forest World is a neat museum with several exhibits about the planting, cultivating, and harvesting of trees in our area of the country.  The kids went to several "stations" and learned all sorts of different things.  At the first station, the kids learned about camouflage and participated in an activity that helped demonstrate the importance of blending in. The second station took us on a tour of various forestry exhibits.  We learned about how to count rings on trees and about the importance of replanting.  The final station was a nature trail.  Here the students saw how to get sap out of pine trees.  All of the kids really seemed to enjoy themselves.

 The museum has recently come under a new director, and she is doing wonderful things to "update" the exhibits.  There were "coming soon" signs everywhere.  This "spider web" net appeared to be one of the new additions, and it was very popular with the kids.

And finally, no trip to Southern Forest World would be complete without visiting Stuckie the dog.  Years ago, this poor dog chased some animal up a tree and got stuck (thus the name).  The conditions inside of the tree preserved his body.  He was found in the 1980s and given to the museum.  This is without a doubt the most popular exhibit.  Petrified dog = cool.