Written By: Ru Xue Jiang
On Saturday, 1/14/23, the AYLUS Dix Hills Branch went to the Connetquot River State Park Preserve to help children understand and learn about the park’s environment and animals as well as nature’s properties in general. This was done through a variety of games such as trivia, puzzles, and crafts. AYLUS members rotated to different activities to help areas that needed more help because of the area being popular or other community volunteers leaving.
The trivia games had set questions with a prize of hot chocolate. If the children were unable to solve the questions, members encouraged the children to explore other stations to understand. When the children were unable to figure it out on their own, members would teach the children themselves to help them understand.
The puzzle games included match the description to the images, allowing the children to be apply knowledge that they are learning to a game. Children were first taught about the topic that the game was focused on, snowflakes, including their life cycle, their structure, and the variety of snowflakes, and the physical appearance of one under a microscope. Afterwords, they would match descriptions they’ve learned about to images
The crafts utilized model magic clay to mold foot tracks of cook only seen animals in the winter. This included the red fox, some deer, birds, ducks, rabbits, and mice. To further illustrate this, children were able to see the different footsteps each animal made and could retrace the footsteps with their own hands and feet. The children gained more empathy and understanding if the movement, structure of the animals, as well as sparking curiosity and the joy for animals to children.
The AYLUS Dix Hills Branch is happy to join their community to help educate children (and some adults) about the wonders of their ecosystem around them and hopes to work with the Saturday Stewards in future events to accomplish this.
Volunteers: Ru Xue Jiang (4 hours), Sara Kong (3 hours and 30 minutes), Nadia Khan (3 hours and 30 minutes), Sydney Walters (3 hours and 30 minutes), Ming Chen (3 hours and 30 minutes), and Brian Fan (30 minutes)
