SOPE classes in McDonald County, led by teacher Keith Jones, have been working on a service project at the school district's central office.
The SOPE program (a combination of the words "success" and "hope") focuses on getting students out in nature and studying science. This fall Jones has a group of eighth-graders, and in the spring he will have a group of seventh-graders.
Jones said SOPE is a STEM course. Some of the projects that students are working on are long-term. The current group is working on a project that was started by the group that met in the summer. The service project at the central office focuses on the trails behind the office, which have open areas for learning spaces.
"When we came down here this was covered in wintercreeper," he said. Wintercreeper is an invasive plant. He said the summer SOPE group cleared out the wintercreeper. American Ozark Hardwoods donated mulch for the trails, and the group spread the mulch. The current group is making maps of the area. Jones said that after all the wintercreeper has been eradicated, SOPE will plant some native plants so that the area looks more like it did historically.
Student Rylee Anderson shared some of what she has learned in SOPE.
She explained the group has been learning about how McDonald County has changed over the years. For example, she said, Indian Creek, which is behind the central office, was much closer to the high school 135 years ago but has moved over time because of erosion.
She said the group studied chemical blooms, a chemical that plants produce to attract or deflect certain animals. She said they are also studying scientific names of plants.
Adam Jones said the students went canoeing on Tuesday, learning how to paddle and communicate with one another. They also learned how to name birds by the sounds they make, he said. He noted they learned about native and non-native plants, such as wintercreeper. The group learned to make a fire and how to plant plants, he said.
Brady Bogart said his favorite part of the class so far is working with drones. He attended the summer SOPE program and worked with the drones then and also works with them a lot during regular school, he said. On Monday, he said, he shot a video of the trail behind the central office and Indian Creek. He said he had to measure the distance between each trail and take a bearing with a compass to map the trails and the outdoor learning spaces.
Shey Hemingway said she most enjoyed looking at the bottom of the riverbed to see what it was made of while canoeing. She said the riverbed was mostly made of rock, some pebbles, some bigger rock and some slabs of rock.
Keith Jones said he has a bigger group of students than last year. He plans to have them make a video with the drones so that, in a couple of years, there will be a comparison to look at of what the trail used to look like. He is also planning a documentary-style video on the Elk River system.