Syrup Sweetens Nicolet's Environmental Classes

Casual observers may mistake the nearly-finished building behind Nicolet High School as some kind of athletic storage shed. 

A shed it is not. Nor is it a shanty, shelter, or shack. It’s Nicolet’s new Outdoor Environmental Center. The 30-foot by 40-foot center is designed to be an outdoor classroom facility, including a lesson in how to make syrup by tapping the nearby sugar maples and boiling it in the school's new maple syrup evaporator.

“The original idea (for the Environmental Center) was to house the maple syrup evaporator and make that process bigger and faster but, at the same time, I was trying to encourage teachers and students to use the woods for education," said science teacher John Rhude, who spearheaded the project. "I’m a huge proponent of getting kids outside, getting them away from all the electronics.”

It all started with Rhude’s first visit to the school’s five-acre woods, where he noticed many species of wildlife, plants, and trees – including an abundance of sugar maples. Recognizing Nicolet had an underutilized educational resource on its hands, Rhude got the school’s approval to enroll the woods in Wisconsin’s School Forest Program, which provides teaching materials for outdoor educators and forest professionals.

In 2011, Rhude and over 100 students helped implement the forest management plan designed by the state by cutting buckthorn, pulling garlic mustard, planting hundreds of native trees and bushes, creating new trails and digging a soil profile pit.

Students in the environmental science classes now use the wooded area to study forestry, soils, wildlife, and do tests on water in the Milwaukee River.

And, of course, Ruhde made use of the sugar maple trees by tapping them for syrup. After two years of boiling the syrup at his house, Rhude decided to boil the syrup on school grounds, right near the trees. So he designed a plan to create a small "sugar shack" that could house a maple syrup evaporator and serve as an outdoor learning facility for teachers and students. 

Last spring, about $22,000 was raised for the project through a fundraiser and with help from the Nicolet Foundation. Additionally, the school received a $5,000 grant to write curriculum and develop an education plan for the new Nicolet Forest. Currently, teachers from almost every department are helping write the outdoor curriculum.

By tapping the maple trees in the area, Rhude is able to collect anywhere from 20 to 30 gallons per day. And now, with the evaporator, Rhude is able to boil 100 gallons of maple syrup per day. The syrup is bottled by the school's culinary club and is sold to raise money for the Nicolet Environmental Club.

The simple sugar shack has evovlved into an Outdoor Environmental Center that can be used by teachers of every subject. For example, English teachers can encourage the reading of Thoreau or Aldo Leopold or math teachers can use the forest to teach how to measure the height and diameter of trees, Rhude said.