Since the 1970s, Falk Middle School students have been engaging with nature and science through an annual trip to a local environmental center.

Originally a multi-day visit to Camp Kon-A-Kwee and now an overnight stay at Camp Lutherlyn, the trip has become a signature Falk experience and a source of core memories for students and teachers alike.

History of Environmental Week 

Camp Kon-A-Kwee 

At Falk, faculty hope for their students "to have reverence for the natural world” and “to experience the satisfaction of working with their hands” (Wishes for Our Children, 2020). From the 1970s through the 1990s, these goals were brought to life through an immersive outdoor education program at Camp Kon-A-Kwee. 

With a combination of wildlife studies and confidence- and team-building challenges, the retreat center provided a perfect setting for scientific and social learning. 

McKeever Environmental Learning Center 

After Camp Kon-A-Kwee, Falk began taking students to the McKeever Environmental Learning Center in Mercer County, PA. 

Yearbook photos from the 2008 trip to McKeever

“Back in the day, we had four days, and [students] would write a seven- to ten-page paper by the end of it on all their experiences,” says longtime history and language arts teacher Greg Wittig. “They would do this, kind of, autobiography of their experience there, from the night hikes to walking barefoot in the stream to the quiet spot [observation].” 

For many years, McKeever also offered outdoor adventure experiences like archery and boating, and students had the choice of playing board games, watching a movie, or carving pumpkins together in the evenings. Since all three Middle School grades stayed for the entire week, these activities were the perfect way to foster cross-grade-level relationships, an aspect of Falk’s mission that remains important today. 

Yearbook collage from the 1995 trip to McKeever

Once or twice, Falk even hosted a Halloween dance at McKeever, an experience that alumnus and language arts teacher Cameron Barnett remembers being equally awesome and tiring. “On the bus ride back, everyone was asleep,” he says with a laugh. “We were exhausted.” 

Camp Lutherlyn 

When McKeever closed its doors in 2017, Falk quickly pivoted to a shorter but equally immersive program at Camp Lutherlyn, a 660-acre environmental education center in Prospect, PA. Since 2020, the trip to Lutherlyn has been paired with two days of soil analysis, water testing, and sample collection in our very own Falk Woods, with the entire week referred to as “Environmental Week.” 

Immersive Education 

Spot Observation 

One of the best parts of Environmental Week is the chance to leave behind life’s usual hustle and bustle and become immersed in the restorative quiet of nature. Throughout the trip, students are encouraged to slow down, take in the sights and sounds around them, and notice things that they’re typically too busy to focus on. 

“More often than not, kids will remark about how much they liked that quiet,” says Barnett, referring especially to what Falk calls the “spot observation.” During this activity, students and teachers choose a spot on Lutherlyn’s property and silently observe and reflect on their surroundings. “We walk in silence, we sit in silence, and we reflect on what we notice with our senses and how we come to our understanding in different ways.” 

Math teacher Michael Yalch, who has been at Falk since 2009, says this is often his favorite moment of the week. On his first trip, “We did [spot observation] for three straight days, and I went to the same spot all three days. Then the next year, I went to the same spot—and the next year. I went to the same spot every year, and I remembered where it was. You're in the middle of the woods on a trail, but it imprints somehow in your mind. And I've heard kids say, when they come back and visit, they know where their spot was, too." 

Hands-On Science 

In the moments when students aren’t silent, they fill their time with hands-on experiences like native plant research and predator-prey simulations. For science teacher Alex Dragon, the epitome of the curriculum is stream analysis, when students collect water samples and look for aquatic macroinvertebrates. 

“It's always fun to see the eighth graders finding invertebrates and being really grossed out, or the ones who used to be [grossed out] getting over that and having fun with it,” he says. “I got hip waders my intern year and just bust them out once a year and stand in a pool up to my waist, letting kids bring bugs over.” 

Later, eighth-grade students conduct pH and chemical tests on their water samples to assess the amount of phosphate, nitrate, chlorine, and other elements in the stream. Meanwhile, in sixth grade, students learn to identify trees, and seventh graders focus on analyzing the local soil. 

In all things, "it isn’t just [kids] being told, ‘The health of streams is important. The health of soil is important. Trees and nature require this and that,’” Barnett explains. “They actually go touch it, smell it, see it—and that's real learning. It's not just a teacher saying something. It's not a textbook or a worksheet pointing out something. It's hands-on.” 

Real-World Math Applications 

Students also have a chance to apply mathematical concepts to the world around them. A few years ago, math teacher Christina Graham helped students estimate the total number of trees at Lutherlyn. “I marked off a plot of land, and they counted how many trees were in that, and then I gave them a map of Lutherlyn and sort of said, ‘Okay, if this is this section of the entire property, use this [number] to estimate how many trees are on the property.’” 

In recent years, Yalch has led a different activity, using handmade clinometers and scale drawings to determine the exact height of a distant tree. “When you hold [the clinometer] up and look at the top of the tree, you get a reading on the protractor,” he explains. “Then once you have your angle of elevation—[and] you also know how far away from the tree you are—you can solve the triangle using the Pythagorean Theorem. Once you have your triangle, you scale [it] up to say, hey, this tree is 28 meters tall.” 

Both projects, Yalch adds, are a perfect supplement to the Middle School math curriculum, building upon recent classroom learning. “[They have] to do with proportions, which is what we study right before the trip, and cross products, which is part of proportion solving, so it's kind of an extension of the unit that we're already doing [and] very related to the seventh-grade curriculum as well.” 

Building Authentic Relationships 

“Aside from academics, it's the social and emotional learning, being away from home and being with their peers that make the experience so special,” says longtime science teacher Eileen Coughlin. “There's a bonding that happens.” 

“I feel like the whole thing is about being together,” Yalch adds. “Whatever you’re doing, you’re doing together. [It’s] a different space, uncomfortable for some, but you’re there together.” This is especially true in the cabins, where students spend the night together and create meaningful shared memories.

“They take their cabin [identity] seriously,” Barnett says, “and they start acting like a crew. I remember I had a [group] of seventh-grade boys one year, and they created this story that they were an airline crew. Everyone was a different part of [the] expedition, and the whole night, they were just constantly riffing on [it]. I look back on it now, and it makes me laugh because it was kids who didn't hang out on a normal school day, and they just got to do that for a couple of nights.” 

Spending the night on-site, teachers also have an opportunity to connect with students in unique and personal ways, showing kids who they are beyond the classroom and emphasizing the school’s commitment to authentic student-teacher relationships. One year, Coughlin remembers, “eighth-grade girls were asking me about my skincare routine and what products I brought,” and another time, she and her cabin had a French braiding night. "You get a little more personal,” she reflects, “which helps build relationships.” 

Graham agrees, adding that “it's just a nice opportunity to connect with the kids in a different way. I think it gives them a different perspective, and us a different perspective, too. One year, when I was coming back to the cabin, [the sixth graders] got back before me and turned off all the lights. I opened the door, and they scared me, and I tried to get them back [all week] and failed.” It became such a fond memory, Graham recalls, that “[we] kept talking about it in class for the rest of the year.” 

A Character-Building Experience 

Attending the Environmental Week trip is also a chance for students to take on new challenges and responsibilities, from overcoming homesickness and insect aversions to serving on the early morning kitchen crew. More often than not, middle schoolers happily rise to these occasions, building a sense of ownership and responsibility. 

“[Being at Lutherlyn] forces them to be in a place of discomfort, whether it's temperature, whether it's bugs, whether it's hiking—whatever it is, I think it puts the kids in a position that just tests them a little bit,” says Yalch. 

“The thing that's interesting,” Graham continues, “is they show a certain level of resilience [on the trip] that they don't always show [at Falk]. There have been years when it's cold and pouring, and there are some kids who complain, but for the most part, they're in it, and they're dealing with it, and they're doing it.” Wittig has noticed the same phenomenon, saying that eighth graders always take their freedom and responsibility at Lutherlyn seriously. 

As an alum, Barnett vividly remembers this sense of duty, particularly while working as a morning kitchen aide, walking up thirty minutes before his classmates to take instructions from the on-site staff. He also emphasizes the self-motivation shown by students each year. “You watch kids really working [hard] because they want to do well, and it's on them. There's nothing else. They're not going to parents at home who are reminding them about what they need to do. It's just them and their bunks.” 

Creating Shared Memories 

At the end of the day, what makes Environmental Week so special is the countless memories created each year: stargazing and listening for owl calls after sunset, playing capture the flag and glow-in-the-dark frisbee, wading barefoot into a stream for the very first time, creating sparks by crunching peppermints at nighttime, sitting around a cozy fire with friends and colleagues at the end of a long day—the list could go on and on. 

“On the last night of the trip,” Barnett says, “no one wants to go to sleep. Everyone would be in the common area. They'd have their blankets. They'd be around the fire. Some people would be playing cards in the back or duck, duck, goose—all kinds of stuff—and it just felt like the coolest sleepover ever.” 

“Mr. Wittig was caught on fire one year,” Coughlin adds, noting just one of many historic mishaps that eventually became an unforgettable story. 

Amidst it all, Graham reflects, “there's always a moment or moments where you’re able to just pause and look around and say, ‘Wow, this is amazing.’ You have these moments of genuine wonder and noticing, [and] we don't often get the time or space to do that.” 

Year after year, students take these moments with them, not only back to Falk when the trip is over, but into the rest of their lives. “You'll be surprised—kids that you anticipate not really enjoying a certain activity, they start mentioning it casually, later throughout the year, whether it's sitting in silence or picking up bugs in the stream or measuring the angle of a tree,” says Barnett. And years later, students continue to remember the experiences, often citing McKeever or Lutherlyn as their favorite memory from all their years at Falk. 

“I never had a trip like this [growing up],” says Yalch, and to experience it now—knowing the impact it has on so many in the Falk community—“it’s special.”