Victuals & Drink, Volume 2 number 7, July 2000 Bark to Syrup Since 1998 students at Pearl Creek Elementary school have been learning about the ecology, human history, and economics of the local boreal forest through a special education program called Tapping Into Spring. This unique educational program brings tudents out of the classroom and into the woods around their school. They are supervised by professional foresters and community volunteers as they measure tree and stand characteristics, and are involved in long-term ecological monitoring, forest management, tapping birch trees for sap, and producing birch syrup. In addition to syrup making the students learn about running a business. The students were responsible for the entire process from planning for the sugaring season to making the syrup, bottling it, and selling their finished product. The profits from their business ventures will go back into funding the Tapping Into Spring program at area schools. This spring Deb Wilkinson's mixed age class of fourth through sixth graders as well as Mindy Hunter's and Shawn Covell's 3rd grade classes collected sap from fifty birch trees on the Pearl Creek campus. They processed the sap into syrup in an on-site sugar shack. An existing "Good Sense Recycling" shelter on the Pearl Creek campus was refigured into a transportable sugar shack by Mike and Richard Musick, Matt Reckard, and other volutneers. The syrup-making equipment was purchased with the help and guidance of Marlene Cameron, owner of Cameron's Birch Syrup & Confections, Alaska's leading birch syrup business. This summer, with their handmade birch syrup available for sale in limited quantities, the students and lucky consumers are enjoying the final sweet sap of the Tapping Into Spring program. | ||
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