Printed from StSteveSchool.org, the St. Stephen's School website:

From the Headmaster: Prehistoric Texas: Woodsies Class

Woodsies, also known as Prehistoric Texas, is an after-school class that evolved out of a Human Ecology Project that I (Stark) taught within a 6^th grade Geography class at TMI in San Antonio. The same semester I was coincidentally teaching a High School Environmental Science Class in which we read Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac. The book gave me the idea that in order for students to understand geography and ecology they must go outside and study the earth and its most minute subtle and beautiful details. Every student was given a circular piece of land 10 feet in diameter to study, map resources, and alter an area using the local resources. The kids loved the activity so much, working together to build gardens and shelters and trading resources, and so I continued the project at St. Stephens with the Prehistoric Texas Woodsies class. The Woodsies class is  a group of 15 to 20 students that weekly gather at a wooded resource area to learn about the local natural resources and about how to work together to use those resources for food and shelter. The class introduces aspects of the lifestyles of prehistoric Texans including atl-atls, basket making, shelter building, and food procurement through foraging, taught by Dr. Richard Stark and Shumla School staff member Nathan Martinez.  The Woodsies curriculum is entirely outside, using walks, games, directed play, and culminates in an overnight campout utilizing shelters built in and from the resource area.