MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — The historic Rose Hill plantation house and Lockerly Arboretum just off Irwinton Road are popular Milledgeville attractions. Guests often visit for tours, enjoy the trail or relax under the shade of deciduous trees. But the Arboretum also offers another unique opportunity. A pond teeming with life, plenty of plant species, and a classroom equipped for biology courses, make Lockerly the perfect place to learn and explore for young elementary school-aged students.

Camp Discovery is one of many educational opportunities offered by Lockerly under the direction of Educational Director Greg Eilers. The first session of the camp, which targeted rising first- and second-graders, took place June 26through 30. From 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. each day, campers were given the chance to engage in fun activities while learning about the outdoors.

“We started doing this one just because there was an age group that we weren’t reaching at all, and there aren’t a lot of camps for, so we decided we’d try it,” Eilers said.

Eilers, who holds an outdoor education degree from Georgia College, has worked at Lockerly for 12 years, overseeing educational workshops and camps both at the Arboretum and at the Lockerly Foundation’s Oliver N. Worley Outdoor Education Center in Putnam County. Through a variety of games and activities, the programs he leads instill in students a love for the outdoors and a desire to promote conservation. For first- and second-graders at Camp Discovery, having fun was the primary emphasis.

“We try to make it where they’re learning, but they’re also having a whole lot of fun and a real good experience,” he said. “We change gears really fast and switch it up if we need to.”

Throughout the week, Eilers taught lessons on microscopes and fossils, but kept things fast-paced and interactive. Interspersed with the basics of biological science, the seven children attending got plenty of chances to just be kids. They got their feet dirty exploring the pond ecosystem, made their own moss gardens in the classroom, and played outdoor games like bear, fish, mosquito, a running game with similarities to both rock-paper-scissors and tag.

“My favorite thing that I learned was about elephant ears, and if you pour water on them and wipe the water off, you won’t feel the water,” said camper Lila Jones, after learning about the Colocasia plant, the leaves of which are commonly referred to as “elephant ears.”

“Playing games,” said 5-year-old Emery Flythe when asked what she liked about the camp, but also said she liked looking at bugs under the microscope. Her grandmother, Karen Dowd, who came to pick her up at the end of the camp, said that Flythe couldn’t stop talking about what she had learned when she went home each day.

“She loves it. She comes home every day and tells us what she does. She loves the microscopes,” Dowd said. “It’s all about science and biology. They’re learning everything about nature, they’re learning everything about what’s in the ponds, what’s in the trees, in the forest, in the woods.”

Madeline McCloskey, a Georgia College student studying environmental science, works part-time at Lockerly in the education department and helps lead the classes and camps. She takes pride in her role in providing kids with outdoor education.

“I just feel like education in general is important, to let them know about the environment and how to protect it and everything that lives in there and how to treat it with respect,” she said.

Eilers envisions a future of young people who share the same ideals as McCloskey —  young people interacting with, caring for and protecting the outdoors. He said he believes this will happen through instilling in children a love for the outdoors from a young age.  In his time at Lockerly, he has, in many ways, seen that dream come to fruition. Young men and women who attended his camps have grown up to not only respect the environment, but they also often pursue careers in outdoor-related fields, he said. One student decided to pursue marine biology because of an interest that developed while attending. Another student does work for the Student Conservation Association, a non-profit dedicated to environmental conservation.

“It’s just neat to see how being exposed to stuff where it’s in a fun environment, kind of leads into stuff they’re interested in life-long,” Eilers said.

The second session of Camp Discovery, for third through fifth-graders began Monday and will wrap up on Friday. For more information on Camp Discovery and other outdoor education programs taking place at Lockerly and the Worley Center, visit www.lockerly.org/education.