Editor’s Note: Teton Science Schools Field Education experiences cultivate the skills of young scientists, artists, and naturalists. This week on the TSS blog, we celebrate the creativity of our students in a series of five posts featuring student work in just as many media: writing, drawing, painting, weaving, and mixed media. We hope you enjoy this nature-inspired work.
During field days at TSS, students reflect on their time in the Tetons, writing in response to a question, a quotation, or their view from a golden aspen stand.
Woods Learning Center, haikus
The Tetons mountains are growing / I admire the grand beauty below / Mountain are sculptures of nature.
The cold dark quiet night / Sounds of nature help us sleep / A peaceful dark night.
I see the Tetons / I always see them changing / Through all the seasons.
Uinta Meadows, reflection
I am connected to the river. It can be still or it can move. I can be still or I can move. I can hear its thoughts. The river is tranquil and peaceful, sometimes it even speaks to us, saying “be more like me.” It is quiet and carries things in it. Its ripples tell us that our actions affect others, like it moves other water.
Kings of the Mountain, journal entry
In the beginning of the week they asked us, “How can spending time in the wilderness help us grow as individuals?” I had no idea at that point but as we got to know each other better and we headed into the mountains the answers slowly came to me. Our dependability grew because we had to be more active or we couldn’t get breakfast or climb a certain distance. Our friendship grew too, and especially our friendship foundations of dependability as one good deed led to another. As complexity levels dropped, gratefulness for simple things rose . . . . The simplest things turned into pleasures. Now we are pleased about so many things we weren’t before. But these things can and will go away if we aren’t careful. But living simply for a time will bring these back to us again.
