Silver Bluff hosts 2,000 elementary school students each year — a collaboration with the Ruth Patrick Science Education Center at USC-Aiken.  Using our 3,400 acres as a living laboratory, these kids often grasp “STEM” concepts (science, technology, engineering, and math) much more readily than they would indoors. 

On any given day, one group of students might scoop tiny creatures out of a pond, then examine them under a microscope.  Another group might follow a deer or a raccoon’s track, learning what adaptations help these animals survive in the wild.  A third group might build a model of our local watershed, learning how to keep local streams and rivers clean and healthy.

Local schools and children’s families pay only a fraction of the program’s cost, thanks to support from Audubon South Carolina.  For more information, please contact program director Kimberly Fickling at USC-Aiken, kimberlyf@usca.edu.