Learning about Pollinators at Forest Explorers Spring Break Camp

This past week we had the wonderful opportunity to teach our Forest Explorers during spring break camp a variety of fun lessons. Pollinators, astronomy, geology, and water were the main topics we explored with our young learners during camp. Our first day focused on a topic that is extremely relevant to springtime: pollinators! Pollinators are vital assets to having a healthy and successful ecosystem. 

We began our pollinator day racing each other to transfer our ‘pollen balls’ from one bucket, to the next. This helped teach our students how pollinators such as bees, butterflies, and birds transfer pollen to different flowers. Throwing in some friendly competition, our racing pollinators were able to successfully demonstrate why the transferring of pollen is important to a successful ecosystem!

Planting flower seeds helped us better understand our role in helping increase the pollinators around us. Creating a pollinator garden is an easy and helpful way for pollinators to play their role in the ecosystem! During our camp, each student was able to plant seeds in their own flower pot to take home and begin creating their own pollinator garden. This website has several great resources for creating a pollinator garden right here in Central Oregon.

Finishing up our pollinator day, each student participated in a giant ecosystem web! Because pollinators are such an intricate part of a healthy ecosystem, we had each student be a part of a giant ‘web’ to represent how complex and connected an ecosystem is. While a pollinator might be small, their impact on food production and plant fertilization is as huge as a giant web!

Forest Explorers learn important and fun lessons that apply to our everyday lives. Becoming pollinators for a day helped convey the importance of bees and other pollinators in ecosystems! Astronomy helped us better understand our planetary neighbors from the terrestrial planets to the gas giants. The geology lessons taught us the different types of rocks we can find right here in Central Oregon, and our water lessons led us to exploring different types of bugs in Tumalo Creek! Thanks to our amazing Forest Explorers, during our camp we were able to better understand our world around us.