Camden students go into the woods

Kareem Taylor, a 17-year-old painter from Camden's Creative Arts High School, only half-listened to the environmental lesson Tuesday at Rancocas Nature Center. The colors and textures in the woods were distracting him.

He shot photos of tree bark, stream water and budding leaves - fodder for future art projects.

On the other side of the state park in Westampton, eight freshmen danced among conifers to Luther Vandross' "Evergreen." Spotting a misstep, teacher-choreographer Arthur Taylor insisted that the teens begin again, despite the 40-degree chill.

This was no ordinary field trip.

In the fall, the New Jersey Audubon Society received a $30,000 federal grant to teach environmental stewardship to the high school's 140 pupils. This week, students took the second of three field trips that eventually will allow them to compare the ecosystems in woodsy Westampton, sandy Winslow and urban Camden.

Scientifically, the yearlong program exposes students to environmental and water-quality issues they haven't studied, as New Jersey's core curriculum has leaned recently toward genetics and cellular biology, science teacher Brett Moonen said.

Artistically, "it gives us a chance to see things we don't normally see, like patterns that appear in nature," said visual arts instructor Elbrite Brown.

The program will culminate in June with a nature-themed performance to include a video of the dancers in the white pines.

"For the students in Camden, it's going to give them a different view of the environment and how they can be involved in it," said Teresa Ippolito, spokeswoman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which made the one-time grant.

Groups of about 70 students each visited the Rancocas center on Tuesday and yesterday. Lessons covered field, forest and swamp habitats; water pollution and sampling; and stream life.

Instructors had to coax some students into participation, said Susan Buffalino, sanctuary director, who led a stream study of macroinvertebrates.

"This is such different turf for them," she said. Some grabbed hip-waders and plunged right into the water. Others hung back. Onshore observers were involved in identifying specimens.

AmeriCorps watershed ambassador Peter Gotta, a recent Richard Stockton College graduate, grabbed the students' interest by slipping popular music analogies into his pollution lesson.

Katherine Axt of the state Department of Environmental Protection turned students into chemists, giving them field kits to test a stream's pH balance, oxygen level, and cleanliness.

Along a nature trail, drama students struck poses, assumed characters, and joked about who should portray a bug or a tree in the year-end play.

"This is way better than the environmental center" in Winslow, said Jinera Tribbett, 16, near a grove of young sweet gum trees.

But as they squished through the cold mud, several said they were ready to go home.

Creative Arts dance teacher Frieda Halliday, who has been with the program since teacher training in November, said she has enjoyed observing the students "outside their element."

"I think, 'You're a courageous dancer, but you don't want to put your toe in the water,' " she said, shaking her head.

The stream encounter had its own drama. Just after declaring the activity "fun," theater major Kindra O'Bryant, 16, screeched after venturing into water that seeped over her knee-high boots.

"I don't want to play anymore," she said as she scrambled up the bank, ripped off a boot, and hopped on one foot to a bench.

Writer Dontay Walden, 17, in waders and a white-and-blue Daffy Duck jacket, sank midway to his knees in the muddy creek bank. The more he struggled, the deeper he went.

"That was a life-and-death situation," he recounted to friends. "It felt like quicksand."

"I had to save my prom date," joked dancer Naceirra Mceady, 16, who pulled him out.

At day's end, students ranked the wading as a highlight, along with tips on avoiding poison ivy and discovering a praying mantis egg pod.

The chaperones were smiling, too. "They don't let math teachers out much," said Mark Boogaard.