“The most exciting part of the trip are the students. I like to see how students react to the site whether it’s at the quarry for the first time, whether it’s seeing the waterfall or the land bridge or taking the hike down along the cliff at Bay Shore. Being able to have those types of experiences is really fun,” said Daniel Winkler, the coordinator for the Environmental Science field trip.

The students who are enrolled in Earth Science will be attending an annual field trip October 23 of this year. This field trip started in 2013 through a program of the UW Extension “that offers these types of experiences for students,” according to Winkler. 

Winkler had worked with one of the people at the extension before he started teaching.

“Geologist Kristen Mitchell told me about this opportunity, and I thought it was a great thing for the students, so we started talking about a possible trip. She was able to get in touch with some of the quarries, and then she eventually led our first trip,” he explained. 

The purpose of the trip is for students to learn more about geology, especially local geology, and local landmarks. It is meant for them to get a sense of other jobs and understand more about the land they live on. 

Winkler gave a rundown of how the day should go. The students will be going to the west side of De Pere for their first quarry and drive a bus for about 150 feet down into the earth. They will be looking at how the mining process works, and later come back up to the top of the quarry and look at some of the fossils that have been found in our area. The workers may also talk about their job and what their job entails, while possibly showing students the drones used to survey the properties.

 The second destination will be the east side of Green Bay up to Scray Hill to look at how mining on the hill is different than the west side of De Pere.

The third location will be Fonferek Glen, where they will be able to see the waterfall and the natural land bridge, “which is also one of only a handful that exist east of the Mississippi,” according to Winkler. 

The fourth and final destination will be Bay Shore at the Niagara Escarpment. The students will get to hear a little bit about the Packers’ history and their connection to Bay Shore County Park. Later, they will hike down to the bay and look at some of the rocks that exist along the bay shore.

After all of the walking and moving around from place to place, earth science students will be headed back to NDA around 2:30 p.m.

All in all, said the teacher, “It’s a jam-packed day.”