VIENNA — Dwight Warnke, a conservation educator with the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) joined the Maries R-1 School Board at its July 25 meeting to discuss opportunities for the district to teach some of MDC’s curriculum.

The programs come at no cost to the school district. Sales taxes support them. If the school chooses to enter the programs, materials will arrive in the mail.

The Discover Nature Schools program has a curriculum designed for students from preschool to high school with the goal of helping students connect with the natural world around them. Warnke said MDC aligned the curriculum with both state and national science standards. Subjects include Missouri’s native plants, animals and habitats. Everything covered by the courses is a Missouri phenomenon.

MDC built preschool instruction around the four seasons. It focuses on helping students make connections with nature.

“We want to encourage children getting outside,” Warnke said. “Engaging with nature, whether it be on the playground or at a park nearby.”

The curriculum for kindergarten through second grade includes topics such as seasons, weather, life cycles and relationships between parents and offspring. MDC offers $500 grants for equipment to go along with the free materials.

The kindergarten curriculum has a special focus on bears that covers topics such as a bear’s life cycle and what bears eat. The program comes with a kit that includes materials such as a bear skull, bear claws and replica bear scat.

Each unit comes with workbooks for students. As new students enroll at the school, the district can order more books at no cost.

Students in third grade and older receive notebooks separate from their textbooks that they can use to record observations. Warnke said that providing each student with a notebook encourages them to focus on the process and why things go right or wrong instead of focusing on results.

“We learn by failure a lot of the time,” he said. “We strive for success, but we learn by failure.”

The middle school curriculum focuses on water ecology and the physical, chemical and biological structures of water. Students also work on projects about potential environmental issues that the community could face.

The high school curriculum covers ecology-based conservation and topics such as food chains and food webs.

MDC also offers to help cover transportation costs at a rate of $7 per student for schools to take curriculum-related field trips up to 50 miles away.

Warnke joined MDC after 33 years as a teacher. He said he used the MDC curriculum during his time as a teacher, so he knows how well it works.

Another program that Warnke discussed was Discover Nature Fishing. It teaches students from third grade through high school by providing both classroom instruction and hands-on fishing opportunities. Topics include aquatic ecology, fish habitat, fish identification, fishing equipment, casting, rigging a fishing rod, baiting a hook and proper fish handling.

As part of the Discover Nature Fishing program, schools receive 25 fishing poles in addition to other materials. During summer school, Warnke worked with some of the middle school students at the library to practice things such as casting and tying hooks.

“We want students to participate and engage with the outdoors,” he said. “Fishermen, hunters, nature-walkers. They appreciate nature, and they want to protect, and so therefore fishers and hunters and nature people are great conservationists.”

Warnke also discussed the Missouri National Archery in the Schools Program (MoSNAP). The program supports introducing international-style target archery to students from fourth grade through high school. Maries R-1 received grants to purchase archery equipment in the past.

Warnke said that MoSNAP is a very structured program that keeps it safe for participants. He said he also appreciated that it is an activity that anyone can enjoy -- boys and girls, students who live in town and students who live out of town, etc.

“(Archery) is based upon your individual talents and skills and what you put into it,” Warnke said. “It also teaches discipline that correlates and translates into other areas, whether it be communication with others, as well as focusing or studying in the classroom.”

Later in the meeting, the board talked to two men interested in coaching archery (see related story).

The last program Warnke discussed was Hunter Education. The program teaches students aged 11 and older to be safe and responsible while hunting.

Warnke said he would be available for any teachers and staff with questions. He left many materials for the board and administration to review.