A local class combined ecology and ice cream creation on a recent trip to Chippewa Nature Center.

Linda Snogren's Pine River Elementary fifth rating class visited the center as part of their ecology unit.

Snogren was one of a number of Midland County teachers awarded a mini-grant previous fall by the Gerstacker Teacher Mini-Grant Program. Teachers and teaching teams relate yearly for a portion of the $14,000 provided by the Rollin Gerstacker Foundation. Each grant awarded is not more than $840.

As they were getting ready to walk to the nature center, salt, plastic bags, spoons and also vanilla flavor were farmed out to the students to carry. Another student pulled a big cooler with the cold stuff - milk, half-and-half, and ice.

They walked from the basic school, down a path to Heron Marsh, which was built in 1991. It was a trade-off; the Midland Mall was built on wetlands and so new wetlands were shaped at the center.

Snogren said wetland soil and plants from the mall ground were brought to create the new marsh. There are grasses, small lily pads, cattails and more.

"What makes this important?" Snogren asked.
"Wetlands are important since there aren't as many of them left," a student said.
"What do (wetlands) do for us?" Snogren asked.
"Plants help us breathe," another student said.

The students started firing off answers.

"It gives animals a place to live," a student said.
"It gives kids a place to learn about," another said. Snogren really liked that answer.
"That's a good one," she said.

Meanwhile, student Megan Rochlitz said how much she "really liked the water."

Finally, it was time for everybody’s favorite part - ice cream making. That was part of the lesson. Instead of going out and trade your ice cream, use ingredients on hand.

The results were mixed. Some students kneaded their bags sufficient to have honest-to-goodness ice cream. Other settled for drinking it like a vanilla milkshake. But all agreed it was tasty.

Cleaning up was a chance for another lesson. The ice was cautiously dumped in the parking lot, and the salt and other ingredients thrown in a bag and toted back to school.

Abby Terwillegar, 11, said she has learned a lot with this unit.

"It's pretty easy to make stuff out of recycled stuff," she said.