Students in Clearview Elementary teacher Gary Gohmann’s kindergarten classroom recently used the school’s outdoor classroom, Clearview Forest, to create wearable art projects.

 

Going for a walk along the forest paths, the students gathered up interestingly shaped leaves, brought them back into their classroom and used them to design t-shirts by making rubbings of them with fabric crayons.

 

After classroom volunteer Kathy Gerdts-Senger ironed the rubbings to set them into the fabric, the students used stencils to write Clearview Forest across the fronts of the shirts.

 

“Gary started with the forest from the very beginning,” said fifth-grade teacher and forest volunteer Andrea Coulter. “He’s amazing. He’s out there all the time, cutting trees, hauling brush and attending meetings. He has a vision which helps us achieve our vision.”

 

A custodian at Clearview when he first joined the Clearview Forest committee, Gohmann was also taking college courses to become an elementary teacher. This is his first year teaching.

 

“I saw it as an opportunity for students to learn about nature firsthand,” said Gohmann as to why he joined the forest committee. “I really like the outdoors so it was a good fit for me.”

 

The school has been working with the DNR to restore the 42-acre forest so it can be used for a variety of educational purposes. To date the project has included cleaning out dead and diseased trees, removing invasive tree species and building walking trails for students to use on nature outings.