About the Homeschool Enrichment Series
SLNC’s Homeschool Enrichment Series is an option for families who take a different approach to educating their children (ages 5-12). Our 4-week program provides an opportunity for children to get hands-on experience within the STEM disciplines, without the formal constraints. Each of the lessons are developed with the PA Standard Aligned System (SAS) in mind and ensure that children will excel in all settings.
There are SIX sessions this year: Fall, Fall II, Winter, Winter II, Spring, and Spring II. The topics covered are relevant to each season. We enjoy all types of weather at SLNC and will encourage your children to feel the same way. It is important to make sure that your child dresses for the weather, including closed-toe shoes, and is always prepared to get dirty! Long pants are also recommended as we do explore in our forest, meadow, and marsh.
The program is a drop-off program run by SLNC’s Environmental Educators. We encourage parents to minimize interactions with the class in order to reduce distractions. Parents are not encouraged to stay on site, but are welcome to hike the trails on their own during this time.
Participants may sign up for either a morning (10:30am-12pm) and/or afternoon (1:30-3pm) session.
Fire, Flood, and Forest🔥
AM: 10:30-12PM
Join us for an exciting 4-week series exploring how forests and other natural communities respond to major disturbances such as fire, flooding, storms, and tree loss. They’ll discover that a “disaster” isn’t always the end of an ecosystem, sometimes disturbance is actually an important part of how nature changes and regenerates.
🔥 Week 1: When Fire Comes (Oct 7th)
Focus: Ecosystem Changes
What happens to a forest when fire moves through it? Students will investigate how fire changes ecosystems and discover the surprising ways plants and animals can survive, recover, and even depend on fire.
Activities include:
- forest investigation
- learning about regeneration
🌊 Week 2: When the Water Takes Over (Oct 14th)
Focus: Watershed Model
What happens when a huge amount of water moves through a landscape? Students will explore flooding, erosion, watersheds, and how water reshapes the land through hands-on experiments and outdoor investigation.
Activities include:
- creating a watershed model
- flood experiment
- stream investigation
🌲 Week 3: When the forest falls (Oct 21st)
Focus: Forest Succession
A fallen tree may look like the end of something, but it can actually be the beginning of a whole new story. Children will investigate fallen trees, decomposition, forest gaps, and the many plants, fungi, insects, and animals that depend on dead and fallen wood.
Activities include:
- ranking decomposition
- forest investigation
🌱 Week 4: Nature Rebuilds (Oct 28th)
Focus: Ecosystem Recovery
After a fire, flood, or major storm, how does nature recover? In this final class, children will bring everything together as they investigate ecological recovery and discover how plants, animals, fungi, and other organisms work together to rebuild changing ecosystems.
Activities include:
- investigating nature recovery
- final group challenge
Weird Science of the Outdoors 🧪
PM: 1:30-3PM
Join us for an engaging four-week science adventure that dives into the bizarre, intriguing, and sometimes gross aspects of the natural world. Through outdoor exploration, hands-on experiments, and investigative activities, children will discover fascinating phenomena, from decomposition and scat to microscopic life and unusual adaptations essential for ecosystem survival.
🪵 Week 1: The Secret Science of Rot (Oct 7th)
Focus: Decomposition
Why doesn’t the forest fill up with dead leaves, trees, and animals? Students will explore decomposition and discover the amazing world of fungi, insects, bacteria, and other decomposers that recycle nutrients back into the ecosystem.
Activities include:
- examining specimens under microscopes
- outdoor investigation
💩 Week 2: Eww! Why Does Nature Do That? (Oct 14th)
Focus: Dissection
Children will investigate and dissect owl pellets to determine what the owl ate and what bones they can identify. Through hands-on activities and detective-style challenges, they’ll discover that even the “gross” stuff plays an important role in nature.
Activities include:
- owl pellet dissection
- scat identification
🔬 Week 3: The Invisible World Around Us (Oct 21st)
Focus: Microscopic organisms
What tiny organisms are hiding in soil, pond water, and leaf litter? Students will use microscopes and observation tools to investigate the microscopic world and uncover the hidden life that helps ecosystems function.
Activities include:
- collecting pond water samples
- collecting soil samples
- examining samples under microscopes
🐙 Week 4: Nature’s Strangest Survival Strategies (Oct 28th)
Focus: Adaptations & Survival Strategies
Why would an animal pretend to be dead, spray chemicals, change colors, or even regenerate body parts? Students will explore some of nature’s weirdest adaptations and then design their own bizarre creature with special survival strategies.
Activities include:
- investigating strange adaptations
- designing & crafting a creature
Please note that we are no longer offering a member discount for the Homeschool Enrichment Series. The total cost for the four-week program is $80 per child. We appreciate your understanding and look forward to another wonderful session together.
Refund Policy:
If you have any questions, please contact Summer Camp Director/ Environmental Educator, Holly Hewchuk at v-hlhewchuk@buckscounty.org or 267-880-5021.