NORTH AUGUSTA — North Augusta's Living History Park became an eight-acre classroom Wednesday for students in the Aiken County Public School District's Summer Reading Camps as they learned about colonial America.
During the six-week camps, 150 rising fourth graders are mastering their literacy skills and previewing social studies and science material they will study in the fall. Producing students able to read at grade-level is the goal of the camps.
"In the social studies curriculum during the first three weeks, the students have been learning about the early settlers - how they lived, how they survived - so bringing them to the Living History Park was a great culminating activity," said Jeanie Glover, director of Federal Programs for the District. "The children can interact with the people portraying the roles of colonial Americans and see how the area might have looked at the time and play with some of the toys children then might have played with. It's a great enrichment activity."
During the two-hour field trip, students visited a colonial apothecary to learn how settlers used local plants, such as Lamb's Ear to stop bleeding, to make medicine. Ernest McPeake demonstrated how 18th-century settlers cured pork to have food for the winter at the smokehouse, and Bob Kaltenback, the village blacksmith, crafted a colonial closet, a simple hook on which settlers could hang the few clothes they owned, from iron and fire.
Students had lunch in the Palmetto Terrace on the fourth floor of the North Augusta Municipal Building and then hiked down the hill to visit Brick Pond Park, a 40-acre, restored wetland, stormwater treatment system and public nature park.
There, they saw a graceful Giant Blue Herron standing silently in a mossy green swamp, turtles swimming near the pond's bank and a few alligators, their eyes peeking just above the water line.
The visit to the four ponds in the park launched the camps' three-week science curriculum, which the students will begin after a Fourth of July break.
"They'll be learning about living things, how they work together and their habitats," Glover said. "Plus, we wanted to make the trip fun for the students."
Summer Reading Camps are one aspect of the Read to Succeed Act, legislation passed by the General Assembly and signed by S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley last June.
The act calls for a "comprehensive and strategic approach to reading proficiency for students in prekindergarten through 12th grade that begins when each student enters the public school system and continues until he or she graduates."
A native of Aiken, Larry Wood is a general assignment reporter.