Hartley Outdoor Education Center
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Hartley Outdoor Education Center is a member of the Saginaw Intermediate School District located 1.5 miles northwest of St. Charles, Michigan in Saginaw County. Since its opening in 1975, Hartley's 300 acres have entertained and educated approximately 250,000 students and houses about 4,000 students each year. It is designed to educate elementary and middle school students, but is not limited to this and can teach high school students as well. As both a camp and a school, many students learn topics they normally wouldn't learn inside a classroom, by going through cabins, coal mines, forests, wetlands, meadows and ponds to learn about topics such as survival, pioneer living, or confidence, enjoying themselves in the process.
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[edit] History
The Hartley Nature Camp Corporation was created in 1948 by Peter Hartley. The camp continued until acquired by the SISD in 1969. In 1975, Hartley Outdoor Education Center opened its door. It was founded on the site of Coal Mine No. 8 and is also home to the Schroeder Log Cabin.
[edit] Staff
Many of the members of the staff have been teaching since the creation of Hartley in the 1970s. The staff includes, but is not limited to, Joe Leach, Andrea Loshaw, Paul "Tall Moose" Rouse, "Broadway" Ben Haller, and Jim Blaschka. Most staff members have naturalist backgrounds.
[edit] Classes
Students are the given opportunities to participate in their classes by making things such as apple cider, candles, funnel cake, and necklaces or learn by seeing wigwams, longhouses, coal mines, reptiles, other animals, or other entities.
The classes include:
- Archeology Dig
- Beaver Creek Watershed Study
- Bird Study
- Mine No. 8
- Compass Course
- Confidence Course
- Discovering Fossils
- Ecology in Action
- Forest Investigation
- Fossils and Coal Mine
- Lumberjack Lore
- Michigan Mammals
- Native American Heritage
- Outdoor Photography
- Outdoor Survival
- Pioneer Living
- Weather
- Wetland Lab
Staff from the center can also bring special classes to schools upon request.
[edit] Recreation
For the students, Hartley is most notable for its recreational output. It has five tobogganing hills, an outdoor athletic facility consisting of a hockey rink, tetherball and basketball court, baseball, football, and soccer fields, and much more, various indoor games for rainy weather or during free time (with many created just for Hartley), and most notably "Almost Anything Goes" Night. "Almost Anything Goes" Night, is a competition where students participate in many different and unique obstacles, and the score has no purpose. Just like the rest of Hartley, all students, regardless of disabilities, can participate. Most overnight students also are given the opportunity to enjoy the movie The Little Rascals. All recreation is led or created by Ben Haller.
[edit] Housing
At each end of the building is a dorm, one for girls and one for boys. Each dorm consists of approximately twenty bunk beds and two separate rooms for advisors and counselors to sleep adjacent to those bunks. There is also a bathroom (complete with toilets, sinks, and showers) for each dorm, in which students are led to believe that is their responsibility to keep clean. The students are taught to keep everything the encounter at Hartley clean as an effort to instill positive values. Any pieces of trash on the floor are given the Hartley nickname of "nerds".
Hartley provides meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well as snacks before bed. They are provided in a way that if a student finishes their food, than they are allowed to have seconds and thirds until all prepared food has been eaten. The students are responsible for keeping the cafeteria clean.
