Jake Monaghan, a senior at New Fairfield High School looks for birds at Wednesday’s Earth Day Celebration.
Earth Day celebrations in New Fairfield are nothing new, but Wednesday’s event was the first time the school system took it on, bringing about 400 students to Hidden Valley Nature Preserve throughout the day.
Middle and high school students visited the 14-acre site in waves, stopping at 13 stations or booths where the high school’s 50 Advanced Placement environmental students taught short lessons through a variety of activities.
The event also served as the official kickoff of the Hidden Valley Nature Lab, the educational component of the preserve, which has been in the works for two years and is comes from the high school’s AP environmental science class. The preserve has been a park since 1960.
A series of bar codes are posted around the preserve that people can scan with their smart phones to learn more about the site and nature in general. This combines technology and hands-on learning to broaden the audience the preserve reaches.
The goal of the event was to inspire an appreciation of nature among students and foster a desire to preserve it, said Stefanie Milovic, the coordinator of Hidden Valley Nature Lab and a senior at the high school.
“Students just have this disconnect with the environment now and what’s important,” Milovic said. “Hopefully it will inspire them.”