THE HIKE SCHOLARS USHER IN SPRING BY MAPLE SYRUPING

On March 20th, the HIKE Foundation hosted its' monthly HIKE SCHOLARS meeting at Dodge Nature Center. The reading theme for March is "Our Earth - a focus on nature". This month's meeting focused on learning more about and participating in nature.

Matt kicked the evening off, as we do every month, by recognizing the HIKE SCHOLARS who had perfect school attendance during the month of January. Each of these SCHOLARS was provided a ¾ lb Swiss Chocolate Bar for their hard work. This was another milestone month for HIKE SCHOLARS as it was the third straight month that more than half of the SCHOLARS had perfect school attendance in a given month.

Each SCHOLAR received their copy of On Earth by G. Brian Karas - a story about earth and all its wonders from a child-size point of view. Matt read the book aloud as the SCHOLARS listened - trying to contain their excitement about our nature excursion. Matt reminded each of the SCHOLARS that spring was in the air and that it would be here very, very soon be here. The SCHOLARS were totally surprised to learn that they'd be ushering in spring that evening.

Brett, our Naturalist Teacher from the Dodge Nature Center, took center stage and explained to the SCHOLARS how maple syrup is made. He explained how the Native America Indians developed the process of creating making maple syrup and maple sugar from maple sap. After some informative classroom time, it was time to hit woods to do some real, live maples syruping.

The first stop was a maple tree that had been recently tapped. The SCHOLARS each tasted the raw sap as it trickled out of the tree. None of the SCHOLARS were impressed with the taste as sap is 80 parts water and I part sugar. The next stop on our journey was the iron caldron, where sap was being turned into syrup the original way by being boiled over a large open fire. Brett explained how through the process evaporation, the water is removed through steam leaving syrup. As in many cases, the original process is very labor intensive and not a very efficient way of producing Syrup. Brett then took the SCHOLARS to the Sugar Shack, where the current way of turning sap into syrup is done. By using an Evaporator, the process becomes much more efficient. There the SCHOLARS were treated with a sampling of 100% maple syrup and maple sugar that had been a year earlier at Dodge Nature Center.

After we completed our little snack, the SCHOLARS were lead deep into the wood to do some tree tapping. Once the perfect tree was located, each SCHOLAR was able to crank the manual auger (dubbed the Super Duper Handy Tool by one SCHOLAR) as the trills were drilled and then spiles inserted into each hole.

As darkness began to set in, the SCHOLARS returned to the classroom to gather their books. The evening concluded with a big round of applause for Brett - their fearless leader.

Once again, the March perfect attendance milestone and the nearly perfect parental participation, made the March meeting another big step forward in inspiring in each of the HIKE SCHOLAR and their family members to seek higher education.