Students from Montessori at Riverton make Yellowstone their classroom

What do you get when you take 20 students, fourth through ninth grade, and send them to Yellowstone National Park for four nights? For the students at Montessori at Riverton, it was a learning experience like no other.

Montessori applied and was selected to participate in the “Expedition: Yellowstone!” program held each year by the National Park Service. This program teaches students about the natural and cultural history of Yellowstone as well as issues affecting its ecosystem, and teaches students stewardship and preservation in the park and at home.

The students were involved in all aspects of the trip, including planning, preparing, and holding fundraisers to earn the money to go. After working hard to prepare for their expedition, 20 students, two teachers and four parent chaperones began their trek in the early hours of Nov. 28.

Upon arrival, two rangers were assigned specifically to their group. “It was nice to have the rangers right there with you. You always felt safe, and it was a learning environment all the time. They would join us for dinner and really made us feel like we were all part of one group,” Wendy Odell, one of the parent chaperones, said.

During their four-night expedition at Yellowstone, the students had very little free time. The emphasis of the program is a direct, hands-on learning experience with the great outdoors, so each day they had instruction time with the rangers and then hands-on experience doing fieldwork. They also prepared their own meals each day and helped with clean up.

The group learned about science and ecology as they used laser temperature guns to get readings on the hot springs and how to track animals using the tagging collars.

They learned about history, using Yellowstone as the background. As they studied the history of Yellowstone Park, they were able to find and study obsidian and artifacts from the American Indians who once lived there. They observed old trenches left behind from the U.S. Army and found out that the park ranger uniforms are a tribute to the army.

One day, they did sketches of the scenery around them in the style of Thomas Moran, an artist well known for his depictions of Yellowstone and an artist the students had been studying in the classroom.

The students also did a lot of writing. They were expected to write about their experiences and what they were learning throughout each day.

“We did a lot of off-trail things. We learned things about the park that you might not learn if you’re just a normal visitor to the park,” Odell said.

“The rangers made learning fun, and we were always learning something,” Emi Sorensen, one of the teacher chaperones, said.

Above all, the students really enjoyed the Yellowstone classroom. “We got to view nature—to get away from the city lights and enjoy the wilderness,” Eric Douglas, one of the student participants, said.

“It was really peaceful there, and we saw a lot of bison and some wolf tracks. It was really gorgeous there,” said another student, Cody Petersen. The group also saw elk, big horn sheep, antelope and bald eagles.

One of the students, Makylah Ladd, summed the Yellowstone trip with two words: peaceful and unexpected. “It was so peaceful but it was also so unexpected—like anything can happen at any time,” she said.