Sixth grade students across Papillion La Vista Community Schools are experiencing enhanced outdoor learning opportunities through revised modules at the district's Outdoor Education program at Carol Joy Holling. The updated prairie and forest curriculum challenges students to explore the essential question, "Why do people settle in the areas that they do?" by connecting Nebraska's settlement history with their previous studies of ancient civilizations.

During the prairie module, students engage in hands-on activities that help them understand the factors influencing human settlement decisions across different time periods and geographical regions. Through group activities, students examine the various roles necessary for establishing a thriving community, drawing parallels between early Nebraska settlers and ancient civilizations they've studied in their social studies curriculum. The experiential learning extends to botanical studies, where students investigate seed dispersal mechanisms and plant reproduction strategies that have sustained prairie ecosystems for centuries.

The educational experience continues as students transition from the open prairie into the forest ecosystem, where they study energy flow and matter cycling within living systems. Students apply scientific inquiry skills by gathering and analyzing evidence of the relationship between structure and function in nature. They observe decomposition processes firsthand, examining how fungi, bacteria, and insects break down decaying logs and discussing how this natural recycling supports the growth and reproduction of organisms throughout the ecosystem. Along the forest trail, students identify numerous examples of plant and animal adaptations that enable species to thrive in their environments.

The diverse landscapes at Carol Joy Holling provide authentic learning laboratories where students can develop deeper understanding of ecological principles and human-environment interactions. By combining cross-curricular connections between science and social studies with hands-on exploration, the Outdoor Education program continues to offer sixth graders memorable experiences that bring classroom concepts to life in the natural world.