Students will write a "postcard home" about the Umsted field trip using a frame poem learned recently in class. The postcard should include a picture collage portraying photos taken throughout the trip.
Social Studies
Students can learn about the history of the park.
From the 1770s to the 1830s, early land grants were given to families (Blakes, Warrens, Dillards, and Pages) for farming. It was later purchased by the federal government in 1934 as part of the relief plan during the Great Depression. The Civilian Conservation Corps knocked down the buildings and created paths, turning the property into the Crabtree Creek Recreational Demonstration Area.
During WWII, the land was used to practice battle maneuvers. Shortly after WWII, the federal government sold the land back to the state for $1.00. For a time, the park was segregated. Black guests to the park could only use the Reedy Creek area of the park until 1966.
Math
Students can calculate their rates of speed as they complete trail hikes in Umsted using pedometers and stop watches.
Teachers can also prepare word problems for students based on the surroundings, i.e. Crabtree Creek is 20 yards wide where the steel footbridge crosses it. The steel beams that connect the north railing to the south, which run parallel to the water, are 6 in. wide. If the bridge overlaps the water by two yards on each side, about how many steel beams were used on the walkway of the bridge? OR Using your measuring tape, calculate the volume of the Company Mill millstone. (Remember to figure in the gap in the middle of the stone!)
The 6th grade science curriculum contains an unit called Umsted has igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary types of rocks for students to identify.
Students could analyze the different soil types found around the park (mostly red, clay rock in the southern part of the park, but dark soil in the Eastern part of the park.