Gone Fishin'!!

From Louis Diaz: Yesterday, the Lower School went fishing in Prospect Park! As one attendee described it, it was back to the basics—fishing Huckleberry Finn style. All the children were led through four stations, each manned by a park ranger. They were taught concepts of safety and learned about the food chain. (Some children had very interesting definitions of what a food chain is...)

We were then handed poles and selected an appropriate location. Each pole was a long bamboo stick with fishing line tied at the end, (no reel, so no casting for safety reasons). The bait was not live worms, which would have yielded very interesting reactions, but kernels of corn. To make the challenge even greater, the entire pond was filled with a thick layer of duck weed and algae. As you can see, the chances were really stacked against the kids! Success was just getting your corn to pierce the upper layer of green. At the end, no one visited the recording station to measure their catch as all the fish remained safe from the RGA Lower School hooks. (Honorable mention goes to Olivia, who apparently did get a nibble, but did not pull in quite in time to get the catch.)

If it's any consolation, the Middle School did not catch any fish either — with the exception of one child, who wisely increased his chances by bringing his own pole.

I took some pictures of the experience — fewer than I usually take since much of my time was taken up cleaning algae and duck weed from the hooks!"