One of the most rewarding aspects of leading field excursions is when students completely immerse themselves in the lesson. This summer, the education team brought second graders from the St. Johnsbury School to the Matsinger’s Pond on a few occasions. Each year, the trip to the pond is simultaneously dreaded and cherished by the second-grade teachers; by the end, twenty 8-year-old students are soggy and covered in mud on the bus ride back to school. However, the students have a blast searching for pond life, including newts, caddisflies, dragonfly nymphs, frogs, and many more! The teachers joke about how each year, a boot is lost to the pond. This year, a few students’ boots came off in the pond. But this time around, one student was an excellent helper by retrieving his peers’ boots that were stuck in the mud. Everyone enjoyed their experience because they embraced the mess and followed their passion for discovering plant and animal life. The biggest learning moment for students at the pond is discovering the difference between a salamander and a newt (all newts are salamanders but not all salamanders are newts). By the end of the day, other students could confidently correct each other and remember that the amphibians they found were in fact newts, not salamanders.