‘Hands-on, feet-wet education’

Though he’s retired from decades as a science teacher in the Quakertown Community School District, Pete Jarrett can’t stay away from the eighth graders’ annual four-day trip to the Chincoteague Bay Field Station in Wallops Island, Virginia.  Jarrett and Strayer Middle School science teacher Jacki Clymer, who took over the program’s administrative duties following Jarrett’s retirement in 2015, traveled with 33 students and three chaperones to spend four days and three nights in what is described as a “hands-on, feet-wet education.” “It’s four days of learning by being outdoors,” Clymer said. “They’re immersed with an appreciation for the outdoors, the marine environment, and their role in it.” Clymer smiles when she talks about how students “see the connections between what they’re learning here in Quakertown and what they learned on the trip. They’re very proud of the fact that they know and can apply these new concepts, and I’m happy to see that.” “It isn’t all just book stuff,” Jarrett said. Chaperone Audrey Fletcher, whose son Simon went on the trip, said “words honestly cannot describe what a powerful learning experience this was for our students on so many levels; academically, socially and emotionally.”