Campers' knowledge blossoms

SCOFIELD, Carbon County — The assignment was to collect wildflowers and range plants and identify their habitats, as well as their common and scientific names.

The teacher, David Felix, held a stem with a tiny flower before the students, who will enter sixth grade in the fall.

"If you look at it, it looks like someone's opening their mouth, and you can see their tonsils, and they're going, 'Ahhh,' " he said. "It's called a purple penstemon."

The students quickly sketched with pencil and paper and picked the flowers, which they later mounted.

The Ashley National Forest has given the staff at Clear Creek Summer Camp permission to collect the flowers for educational purposes. The camp is owned by Alpine School District.

Programs run year-round, but the summer camp is for sixth-graders only. About 105 students attend each week.

Students learn about plant and animal life, stream ecology, geology and the area's coal mining. They also learn about pollution, erosion and other threats to nature.

"We try not to be the tree-huggers," said Boyd McAffee, who has been Clear Creek's principal for the past 15 years. "We need to teach them to appreciate the outdoors. A lot of them have never been camping."

"We've had kids who have literally never cooked a hot dog on a fire before," added McAffee, who has been a principal or teacher at the camp for the past 30 years.

The camp is named after the old mining town of Clear Creek, where the district first began its camp program in 1942. Now the camp sits on 887 acres a couple of miles away, outside the town of Scofield.

Clear Creek has four sleeping lodges, indoor and outdoor classroom space, a teachers' planning quarters, a chow hall and a bathroom and shower facility.

Felix, who teaches Spanish at American Fork Junior High during the regular school year, said the students' age is perfect. They are old enough to spend a week away from home. Yet they are young enough to allow their enthusiasm for learning show.

Bailey Tuttle, a student at Eaglecrest Elementary School in Lehi, had camped with her family at Strawberry and Yuba reservoirs, but she had never before built a trap for chipmunks and squirrels with a can and wire mesh. The students glob on creamy peanut butter and release the critters after they are caught.

"I haven't caught one yet," Tuttle said. "They've taken all the peanut butter" and scampered away.

McAffee promotes the program at the district's 43 elementary schools in the spring. The cost is $150, but fee waivers are available for those who qualify.

Registration is based on a first-come, first-served basis. About 400 students were turned away this summer, McAffee said.

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E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com