Linda Stelter
INFOCUS092511
Junior League of Birmingham docent volunteers Sarah Brown (left) and Lauren Brooks talk with Hemphill Elementary School second-graders about peanuts during a Discovery Field Trip at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.(Birmingham News Photo Linda Stelter)
TEXT: Every school year, volunteers lead Birmingham and Bessemer school students on "Discovery Field Trips" 9:30-11:30 Monday through Friday to interact with nature throughout The Gardens' 67.5 acres. Two docent volunteers from the Junior League of Birmingham, Lauren Brooks and Sarah Brown recently led second graders from Hemphill Elementary School through the "George Washington Carver" Discovery Field Trip. "Second grade is a pretty good group,'' says Brooks. "They're still young enough to think what you say and do is wonderful...and they're old enough to keep up and ask good questions,'' she says. "It's exciting when you show them how to stop and observe something on the ground...or a seed in the cotton and get them interested in asking questions." By the end of the tour, after playing games with spiky rubber balls simulating nutrients for cotton, holding everyday items from glue to shampoo made with peanuts, and becoming familiar on the life and research of American scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor George Washington Carver, the kids gathered in a garden examining real peanuts grown right at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Brooks and Brown pulled up a couple peanut plants and passed them around, amazing some of the students as the peanuts dangled from the roots. One little girl asked if George Washington Carver invented peanuts, says Lauren Brooks. "No, but he sure found lots of great uses for them,'' she told her. (Birmingham News Photo Linda Stelter)
INFOCUS092511
Junior League of Birmingham docent volunteers Sarah Brown (left) and Lauren Brooks talk with Hemphill Elementary School second-graders about peanuts during a Discovery Field Trip at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.(Birmingham News Photo Linda Stelter)
TEXT: Every school year, volunteers lead Birmingham and Bessemer school students on "Discovery Field Trips" 9:30-11:30 Monday through Friday to interact with nature throughout The Gardens' 67.5 acres. Two docent volunteers from the Junior League of Birmingham, Lauren Brooks and Sarah Brown recently led second graders from Hemphill Elementary School through the "George Washington Carver" Discovery Field Trip. "Second grade is a pretty good group,'' says Brooks. "They're still young enough to think what you say and do is wonderful...and they're old enough to keep up and ask good questions,'' she says. "It's exciting when you show them how to stop and observe something on the ground...or a seed in the cotton and get them interested in asking questions." By the end of the tour, after playing games with spiky rubber balls simulating nutrients for cotton, holding everyday items from glue to shampoo made with peanuts, and becoming familiar on the life and research of American scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor George Washington Carver, the kids gathered in a garden examining real peanuts grown right at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Brooks and Brown pulled up a couple peanut plants and passed them around, amazing some of the students as the peanuts dangled from the roots. One little girl asked if George Washington Carver invented peanuts, says Lauren Brooks. "No, but he sure found lots of great uses for them,'' she told her. (Birmingham News Photo Linda Stelter)