When Beth Hanish read the email that Tyler Arboretum was looking for volunteer educators to help with school field trips, she could not resist signing up. With her love for the outdoors and her background in education, it was a no-brainer. As a former art teacher who now devotes the majority of her time to raising three boys (a full-time job times three!), being outdoors with kids in nature at Tyler constitutes the perfect marriage of that interest in the outdoors and education.
There are so many great aspects of being involved in the field trip program, but what Beth really enjoys is simply being able to get kids outside in all types of weather, encouraging them to slow down and notice things around them that they might not notice otherwise. She says, it “feels really special to give kids that experience.”
Interestingly, one of her favorite experiences on a field trip involved conversations she had with one of the teaching staff on the trip, who was “just floored and enamored by Tyler Arboretum and kept saying he wanted to come back with his family and have a picnic. And I thought that was really cool.” Because, she explained, adults don’t generally get to experience this kind of novel field trip. Beth liked that the experience the kids have being at Tyler extended to this teacher.
Another memorable trip was one smaller in number, where it was drizzling all morning. Because of the weather, Beth was anxious about how it would go. The kids, however, had the best time. It was so peaceful because not many people were around that day. The kids felt like they had the place to themselves, like they were in this space where it was just them.
Even when Beth is not at Tyler, she is always outside in her garden at home. She and her sons even dug a small pond in their backyard, which has been a really fun adventure for all of them – and they even have some minnows swimming around in it.
When Beth first started volunteering as an educator in the Fall of 2023, Tyler had not run field trips since before the pandemic, so all of the volunteers were really enthusiastic about getting the field trip program up and running again. The program has grown and developed since then, and Beth loves being a part of it. Because of her art background, she notices the color, shape and texture of things in nature and she hopes to continue encouraging students on the field trips to use their senses and try to see things they wouldn’t necessarily see otherwise.
