Rigby fifth graders win trip to Yellowstone National Park
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RIGBY — Students from a local elementary school recently won an all expense paid trip to Yellowstone National Park, because of their serviceable acts.
“It was the best day there seriously. The kids got to see a ton,” teacher Jennifer Mumby said.
Fifth grade students at Farnsworth Elementary in Jefferson Joint School District 251, had been doing serviceable acts all year and were hoping to do one more big project before the summer break.
So the children entered the Kids to Park Day National School Contest hosted by the National Park Trust. The contest encourages K-12 students to come up with a custom project that aims to protect and preserve national parks. The National Park Trust is an organization committed to preserving parks, and creating the next generation of stewards, according to ParkTrust.org.
“The kids did this. They wanted kids to be the ones to do the project,” Mumby said. “Teachers were (just) supposed to oversee it.”
In the contest entry students were required to incorporate what they could learn from the park, ideas to preserve the land, and how they could promote health and wellness while on their expedition.
Mumby said the part of the proposal students were most interested in was “stewardship,” or ways they could preserve and care for the park.
“The kids filled out the entire proposal, and they also created a music video. They had to plan their whole day, they had to plan a health aspect, a recreational activity, they planned our sight seeing and our educational aspect,” Mumby said.
In the video, students explained all of the service projects they had done as a class, or as a tribe as Mumby refers to them.
“Every time there could be a (class) party or should be a party — we don’t, we always do something during that time for others,” Mumby said.
Mumby’s class cleaned up trash along the the geyser basin of Old Faithful. They also hoped to clean up fire pits in areas surrounding the park, but weren’t able to during there visit. The students hiked the Yellowstone Overlook Trail, explored and saw wildlife. The class even wore t-shirts to honor a student, Lucas Hammer, who passed away this year due to a brain tumor.
“The whole reason the kids wanted to do it was because of the service,” Mumby said.