Field Trip

The fires around Lincoln in 2015 and 2017 have left the landscape scarred with swaths of burned trees, but comparing them to the area of Copper Creek that burned in the devastating fires of 2003 provides an opportunity to see first-hand how landscapes recover from fire over time.

Lincoln fifth and sixth graders spent last week learning about native plants and wildlife with the help of the Blackfoot Challenge, and capped things off with a field trip to do just that.

"I just really wanted to come show the kids different types of burns," said 5th grade teacher Stacey Mannix. "We've had all the burns last year. A lot of people have their livelihood from the fires. It just seemed like a really educational thing to do."

Mannix worked with Elaine Caton, the Challenge educational program coordinator, to schedule the weeks educational opportunities for the kids, which kicked off Tuesday with a visit from Powell County weed coordinator Karen Laitala, who talked to the kids about native and non-native plants and noxious weeds.

"Wednesday we were with Elaine and did birds which were awesome," said 6th grade teacher Katy Spencer. "She brought in this collection of (stuffed) birds for the kids to try to identify."

Wednesday also saw Blackfoot Challenge Wildlife Technician Eric Graham spend time with the kids, teaching them about bears, wolverine and lynx.

"We got to spray inert bear spray, and learned how to spray it properly. Then he did telemetry with them, where he hid a collar and went from there to today," Mannix said.

"It's been a lot of different education for them in the last couple weeks of school," said Spencer.

The Lincoln Ranger Districts Office Manager Emily Gilbert and firefighter Kristi Hills joined Caton to lead Thursday's field trip to the Park Creek and Sucker Creek Fire areas, followed by a visit to the Snow-Talon fire area on Copper Creek that gave kids an insight into how fire functions.

"I learned that fire affects our environment and adds to our environment," 5th grader Delia Tolan said.

Krymzen Dempster, who liked the field trip for the chance to go hiking off the road, found it interesting that wind can blow around trees and cause fire to swirl up them. She also had the chance to do a bit of foraging and brought back a sandwich bag full of morels.

Getting out and seeing the burns was my favorite part," Mannix admitted. "I've never seen the Snow-Talon fire and I'd never been up here, so I relied heavily on Jackie (Grantier) to scope places out.

The trip to visit the burned areas also tied into studies on the heavy snows that covered the area that Mannix's class had worked on over the winter. They looked at everything from the depth of the snow on the football field (four-and-a-half feet at one of the goal posts) to determining the water content of snow, its temperatures at different depths and how the color of objects affected snowmelt.

"This was kind of our culmination of why snow is important and how much snow we did have," Mannix said. "Then that was brought up by our speakers and that just kind of backed up what we've been doing."