A Road Less Travelled

This year for school I’m in charge of science for the the kids. I’m doing animals with the little kids which is a lot of fun and plants with the big kids. I wanted to start with explaining photosynthesis so they’d have a grasp on that big idea which informs most of the structural decisions of a plant. Of course, it’s been a while since I’ve had to think much about photosynthesis so I was reading up on it to make sure I wouldn’t give them misinformation. And the more I read the more I remembered when I learned about plants what feels like so long ago.

We were camping. Just Mom, my sisters and I. It was fall which is the best time to camp especially at a National Park in the Allegheny mountains. The mornings are crisp like a fresh Honey Crisp apple and the nights are cold. The temperature slowly climbs to warm in the sun as the day goes on and then plummets at night just in time to sit by the fire thinking about nothing much. Normally we camped in the upper part of the campground at campsite 74. It was a walk-in site, within sight of the road, but up a hill, over a creek and through the woods. But since Dad wasn’t with us he didn’t want us to be that far from the road and fellow campers. Or maybe the upper loop was closed because it was getting into the off-season. Either way, we were in the lower loop which was right next to the playground. The playground had a two level log cabin that was a perfect place to play. We were a blessed group of children in that I don’t think any of my siblings ever got too cool for playgrounds. So when we weren’t doing something else my sisters and I were at this playground, climbing the outside of the log cabin and riding the giant caterpillar.

Ostensibly this was a field trip so there was a lot schooling that happened. We took long walks while Mom explained about pigments. Chlorophyll reigns supreme until, as the leaf slowly dies, it is overthrown by other pigments. I held in my hands leaves the color of fire as my mother’s voice rolled over me. We sat at a picnic table under the trees as she explained about sunlight, water and chemical reactions. The wood was rough on my finger tips as I picked a leaf out of the pile. We walked along the road as she talked about evergreens and deciduous trees. The crunch of our feet on the gravel was the only human sound to hear. We sat in the sunlight and listened as she passed down a slice of knowledge that I have never forgotten.

Sometimes I forget I still know what she taught, but as I read all the information came flooding back. And with it came memories of this grand field trip into the woods, under the trees, through the leaves. This trip into the very heart of autumn to learn about it and experience it at the same time. The feel of the wooden picnic table, the swish crunch of the leaves we walked through, the smell of the campfire, the dying glory of the leaves still clinging to their trees. The feeling of twilight on a sunny noon, or the crispness of night in the mountains.

My classroom is far more pedestrian than my mother’s was, but I can still use to get her grandchildren excited about plants and growing things. I’m not teaching in the midst of autumn yet, but when it comes you can be sure I’ll do my best to get the kids out into it. To experience the glorious burst before the winter.