If kids could vote, Rocketship Park would win the prize as favorite playground.
It’s a launchpad for fun!
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Rocketship Playground is located in Deer Creek Park, and a warm day near the vernal equinox is a particularly nice time to visit. Most people who visit America’s national parks never stray far from the parking lot and the same is true of Deer Creek Park. If you are one of the few who likes to get off the beaten track, this map’s for you!
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Rendezvous with friends at Rocketship Playground, search for the “secret steps” down to the creek, and start exploring. Then follow the bouncing star over the bridge, along the creek, and hunt for the secret spring, the “ghost trolley” and climbing boulders. You get the idea; the map is a starting point for your explorations but here’s a journey guide to tell you exactly where to go and what to look for:
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If you begin from the top of the park (near the ghost trolley and MayPop), look for three waterproof adventure maps that were hidden in the daffodils on the Spring Equinox, and if you find one, let us know below!
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Here’s the secret spring you’re looking for; it tends to dry out as the summer wears on, so spring is a good time to go. Keep an eye out for water sprites and woodland faeries! Building strong imaginations in early life is the secret to creating strong innovators later in life.
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Download the above map for print out
or save your ink and buy our book of ten adventure maps on Amazon,
Mark your calendars on March 6th for a Harriet & Dred Scott adventure hunt; the Old Courthouse in downtown Saint Louis is a good starting point. March 6th is the anniversary of the preposterous Supreme Court decision in 1857 that decided “Any person descended from Africans, whether enslaved or free, is not a citizen of the United States.”
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For every action there is a reaction — the Supreme Court got it wrong and reaction to that judgement helped spark the Civil War. Your destination is the Harriet & Dred Scott sculpture that faces the Arch and the Mississippi River. It’s sitting on a slave auction site.
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The Old Courthouse in Saint Louis is a very majestic building and stands a living temple to the Rule of Law. It’s modeled after the Vatican and was built at the same time as the US Capitol in Washington. It’s free to visit and important for children to do so. Enter through front doors and explore the exhibits; kids especially like the underground railroad and finding the secret staircases that lead up to the top of the cupola. Here’s a previous adventure guide with clues on how best to do that:
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The Old Courthouse is incredibly grand and worthy of many repeat visits. Don’t forget to say hello to Harriet Scott, Lucy Delaney and Frankie Freedom on your way into the building, as women are often behind many successful struggles for freedom.
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Not far from the Old Courthouse is the home of Dred Scott’s lawyer, who was Eugene Field’s father, Roswell Field. Eugene Field was a poet who became famous for his children’s poems, notably Wynken, Blinken and Nod. Eugene Field loved toys, so the Field House also houses a toy collection and interesting toy exhibits.
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The Field Museum is located near the Old Courthouse but too far to walk; it’s fun to visit during the holidays to enjoy the home in full seasonal splendor, and maybe to pick up an old-fashioned wind-up toy to add to your collection.
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The tour of the home is quite interesting, but more suited for older children as are the changing exhibits, including the exhibits on Dred Scott and Saint Louis history. It’s sort of dear to know that Saint Louis children collected pennies to help save this historic home for posterity.
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Your third destination on the Harriet and Dred Scott adventure hunt is Calvary Cemetery, where Dred Scott and Harriet Scott are buried. Their grave-sites were hard to find in the past, and can still be hard to find, which makes it a worthy adventure hunt. Dred Scott’s new gravestone makes the hunt a little easier. See section 19 on the Calvary Map:
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Many people bring pennies to leave as an offering; place them Abe Lincoln side up!
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March 6th is a great day to go on a Harriet and Dred Scott adventure hunt, or any day for that matter. They say Saint Louis is the most fascinating city in America, it’s also an important city, a historic city, a legendary city. Be sure to bring your pennies with you and then share the wealth with others.
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Speaking of pennies, there’s a penny drive to help pay off the balance of the Harriet and Dred Scott statue recently installed near the Old Courthouse. There are 22 more sites you can visit on your Harriet & Dred Scott adventure hunt!
Middle March is the perfect time to go on a daffodil hunt and there is no better place to do it than Bellefontaine Cemetery in North Saint Louis. Daffodils are the trumpets of spring, and nothing shouts spring like thousands of bright yellow daffodils bursting wildly from the ground.
Surprisingly, this is a great trip for teenagers, particularly brand new drivers. Teens are intrigued by cemeteries and the narrow sleepy roads are perfect for building spatial intelligence and for taking the wheel that very first time.
Be sure to stop first at the Main Office to pick up a map and a bottle of water, and perhaps use the facilities. Use your official map to target one or two destinations, but in general, simply have your teen follow the white line around the cemetery, which might take about an hour. The cemetery is surprisingly large.
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The best daffodils are located near Cypress Lake. Daffodils are the trumpets of spring; they shout that spring is coming but spring is not necessarily here yet.
Missouri weather can be unpredictable in March, but this trip works in any kind of weather. If it’s a nice day, bring a picnic and get out of the car to explore on foot, or head towards William Clark’s plot to leave a penny on this famous adventurer’s gravestone.
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Bellefontaine is full of significance and there is something for everyone. You will want to return many times to begin to explore this magnificent arboretum and nature preserve, perhaps during the Beer Baron Tours in the fall.
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This is also a nice field trip for families seeking social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic. Interestingly, Bellefontaine Cemetery was originally created in response to a cholera epidemic that killed nearly 6% of the Saint Louis population before a clever doctor made a map and determined that a single water well was the source of the contamination.
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Speaking of maps, here’s a Green Spiral adventure map designed for younger families. You can make your own adventure map, download this map from the Green Spiral Facebook page or buy it in the Urban Wildbook of adventure maps available on Amazon.
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Indeed, whether following the trumpet of angels, soldiers or daffodils, Bellefontaine Cemetery has an adventure for nearly everyone in early spring.
The economist Milton Friedman once said “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” — and yet the Economy Museum is free!
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Of course it’s paid for by your tax dollars and run by the Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis. The St. Louis Fed is famous for its excellent presentation of data, so it comes as no surprise that the Economy Museum would be award-winning as well, but why this tour remains a hidden gem is still a bit of a mystery…
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Located on Broadway within walking distance of the Arch, this is a good field trip for students who have jobs and are beginning to learn about money, debt and the economy. You might want to open a checking account and credit card as part of the financial literacy experience…
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It’s best to create a small group learning experience, so bring a few friends, or perhaps another family pod. Bring your vax cards. Find street parking near the museum at Broadway & Locust, and make your way through the security check-point, after which you will be ushered into a lobby with short video. Plan on spending about 30 minutes inside the museum, depending on the interest and engagement level of the young people. The visit is short, sweet and self-guided trip.
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Be sure to play the BUY-SELL game located in the middle of the room, which mimics action on the stock trading floor. It’s super fun and why you need to bring a few friends with you.
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Get your picture taken with the giant Lincoln penny in the middle of the room. The photographer regrets the lack of teenager to show you the scale. The penny is quite large.
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Towards the end of the exhibit, hunt for the short video on the wall that illustrates how everything gets better, when viewed through the lens of data; a comforting message in today’s world. (Except for WWI, of course, when so many young men died.)
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After exiting the exhibit, you will enter a small gift store where you can pick up a bag of free shredded money! As a special treat for hungry teenagers, Sugar-Fire BBQ is a three minute walk around the corner. The Blues Museum is located adjacent to Sugar-Fire and is also an excellent destination — making for a perfect teenage trifecta stay-cation.
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Check the schedule before you go, as the Economy Museum is open only during office hours and not on weekends. The “dog days of summer”, when it’s too hot to do anything else, is the perfect time to go.
Saint Louis is a magical world for children and a wonderful place to grow up. This map invokes formative childhood memories of Saint Louis and celebrates teenage touchstones and interests.
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Turns out, Saint Louis has invented a lot of teen-friendly foods. First you make the map, and then the map tells you what you see. You never know what that might be!
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Here’s the story guide that goes along with the “Fly Away Home” map:
Loyal fans and followers are welcome to download and printout the story and map for personal use. If you’d like a small poster, there is a limited number available at The Nook, a gift and gathering space in Ladue that benefits St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
You can also be the first to buy these adorable pillows from Zazzle and send your student off with hugs from home.
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The pillows are 16″ x 12″ and have the “Fly Away Home” image on the front plus a quote from our great poet T.S. Eliot on the back: “The end is where we start from.”
Here’s the link for the pillows, they are priced at around $30.
It’s fun to watch Saint Louis fall in love with itself, and if you’re like me, or Ferris Bueller, you know that life moves pretty fast, and you have to stop and look around once in a while. If you don’t you just might miss it. #FlyAwayHome
Sometime between Tax Day and Mother’s Day, find time to enjoy this enchanting “hike” that travels downhill into a cool hollow and backwards through geologic time. Your target is a field of bluebells, juxtaposed against miniature train tracks…
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Tune into to the charming creek that meanders along the trail, and delight in the little blue wildflowers, which mix with the brilliant new green of spring to produce a shimmering, ethereal effect. Perk up your ears as you travel through the IBA, (“Important Bird Area” per the Audubon Society) and listen to the birdsong that fills the air. Go around Tax Time to see the bluebells, or go around Mother’s Day when songbirds are migrating. Peek inside the bluebells to see if you can find some woodland fairies…
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The Rock Hollow Trail is an asphalt trail, with no restroom facilities; wear good tennis shoes and bring water, plus a snack. It’s 1.5 miles to the turn-around spot; expect to be gone for about two hours, and don’t under-estimate the uphill return. Athletes, large dogs and teenagers will have no problem with this hike, but children, small dogs, and stroller families might find the return trip a bit difficult. As you proceed, keep calculating your endurance for the return uphill trek. Cell service is not dependable. Consider bringing the macro lens for your camera, or perhaps a bird book or Missouri wildflower book.
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Start at Ridge Meadows Elementary and park on the permeable pavement. The Rock Hollow Trail begins around the corner and descends quickly downhill; it’s 2.3 miles to the river. Start listening for songbirds at the first meadow, and notice the many creeks joining Hamilton Creek. See if you can spy the hidden tree fort, or the hawk’s nest through the trees. Below is a typical map you will find, which is why I made the special magical map for you, above. Photos and maps don’t begin to capture the spirit of this magical place, and they don’t tell you when to go…
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There’s an old nature saying that says “Rocks Make the Place,” and the sedimentary rock you’re looking at is Dolomite Limestone layered with sandstone. Enjoy the “five finger” maidenhair ferns and the “walking ferns” which grow directly on the rocks. The first upright flower you are likely to see is Rose Verbena. As you travel further, crossing several wooden bridges, little blue flowers called Blue Eyed Mary will appear. These native flowers are uncommon, native to the area, and are on the “do not touch” list. Their presence indicate that the area has never been disturbed.
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Look for mile markers on each bridge and stop to read the interpretive signs. As you reach mile marker D, you are approaching the IBA and will hear the loud symphony of bird song. Massive magical bluebell fields and miniature train track begin to appear around mile marker G. This would be a good turn-around spot from either starting place. It’s a bit of a hike all the way down to the bluebells!
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Watch out for mountain bikes as bike trails begin to crisscross the path in this area; check out GORCTrails.com for the best mountain biking maps. If you want to walk your dog, there is a charming creek walk at Rockwoods Reservation near the nature center, which might be a better place due to the many, many bikes…
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Come back another day for a family biking trip. Start at the bottom of the trail at the Al Foster Trailhead near the miniature railroad, knowing about the extra mile along the Meramec River. You will park at the railroad and travel past a wetlands and dry cactus glade before turning gently uphill to find the bluebell fields making for a 4 or 5 mile trip total. This makes for a nice first family bike ride, as the trail is fairly open and flat, and your trip back to the car is all downhill. Send me a photo of your family bike ride and I’ll publish it on this blog!
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Of course if you have preschool kids, you must do the Wabash Frisco and Pacific miniature railroad first! It operates on Sundays only and costs $4. Many others have written about that!!
The Sustainable Backyard Tour began in 2010 in Saint Louis. It’s a grassroots event, one of the first of it’s kind, and it just celebrated it’s 7th anniversary in 2017. Known affectionately as the SBYT, this is a free event by locals, who throw their garden gates open to the public each year, to showcase best practices in organic vegetable growing, beekeeping, chicken farming, native habitats, water retention and clean energy. Typically, over 40 hosts showcase their backyards and gardens every year. Green Spiral Tours took advantage of the SBYT to visit the celebrated Urban Harvest Food Roof in downtown Saint Louis. The Food Roof is fantastic!
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Located downtown near the City Museum, and above Wave Storage, you can easily park on the street next to Wave Taco, which offers a volleyball tournament arena, several tons of white Florida sand, and a tiki bar serving tacos, beer and margaritas. To get to the Food Roof, enter through the doors at W-ave Storage, and make your way up the stairs to roof. When you pop up, expect to be impressed by an exceptionally well designed space and vibrant scene.
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5 staff, 15 interns, 300 volunteers, and several master gardeners help make the Urban Harvest Food Roof what it is today. It’s a beautiful rooftop farm, showcasing best practices while collaborating with a cluster of food partners. The Food Roof is the brainchild of Mary Ostafi, an EarthDance Farm graduate; Mary is a trained architect, who brings high design and great intentionality to everything she touches. The Food Roof is the first rooftop farm in Saint Louis, and is growing into a localized network of farms, gardens, educators and food distributors in north Saint Louis.
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There’s a chicken coop and greenhouse on the roof, plus hydroponics, a community garden, test garden, and gathering space for events, educational functions and weddings. It’s incredible, and, it’s beautiful.
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70% of the food generated is donated to partner organizations, including the STL Metro Market (the Food Bus), the Fit & Food Connection, St. Patricks and the kids at Flance. Green Spiral has hosted field trips to both St. Patrick’s and Flance in the past. St. Patrick’s serves under-priviledged populations, and has one of the first “kitchen incubators” in the country. Flance is a Platinum-level preschool – only the 4th such school in the world – and what happens inside the building is as impressive as the green building structure itself. It’s exciting to watch these world class, cutting-edge sustainability programs grow, right here in Saint Louis.
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Now here’s the best part: if you want to visit the Food Roof, and missed the chance during the SBYT, you can drop-in any Saturday morning from 9 – 12, when the Food Roof is open to the public. OR, you can attend any number of special events, such as workshops, Happy Hours, Harvest Dinners, or yoga. The events serve as fundraisers to help fund the many programs. Find the time to visit this incredible and beautiful farm – on a roof! – in downtown Saint Louis; you’ll be glad you did.
(#6) Red Solo Cups are not really recyclable, which is so sad, because the Red Solo Cup song is really fun. Here’s the “bad boy” version of the song, in case you’ve not seen it:
Now, what we need to do is create a good green cup, and make up a great new song to go with it!
At 22 million views, “red cup living” is culturally drubbing those of us drinking from the “good green cup” — it’s just so much more fun to be naughty than nice! At some point, however, we’ll going to have to learn to be nice to ourselves and to our mother earth.
Yet, I digress from the central topic of green and sustainable field trips in the Saint Louis area.
Here’s a terrific field trip for teens, scouts, and greenies of all ages (except for little kids) — a trip to the recycling facility at Resource Management Company in Earth City. Ask for Gary Gilliam. 314-770-9898, or send him an email at Gary_g@rmcrecycle.com. Gary’s happy to offer field trips at any time, as field trips are good for growing the recycle business. And here’s the really good news, not only is this field trip quite interesting, it’s absolutely free!
Many people are surprised to learn that Saint Louis has one of the most progressive recycling ecosystems in the country, and Gary is one of the “solutionaries” who helped figure out how to do it.
“All Together Now”
The short answer to recycling success is the rise of the “single stream” process, which means “throw it all in and let the recycling facility sort it out later”.
Gone are the days of sorting bottles from cans into little blue bins. Volume makes the economics work, and switching from little blue sorting bins to big green carts on wheels brings enough volume into the recycling game to make recycling sustainably profitable.
Less than 30% of Saint Louis households currently recycle their trash, so every field trip to a recycling center builds “customers,” thus bringing all of us, earth’s creatures included, into ever greater stability, success, and sustainability.
The original cave man
Our waste stream is valuable; and Gary is emphatic about it: “There’s Treasure in Your Trash”! While it’s important to understand the economics of sustainability from a macro-view, most people on this field trip will want to know exactly what can be recycled, and what cannot.
Here’s a link to the Saint Louis County Health Dept ‘Recycling Becomes Me’ website. Download it, bookmark it, Facebook it, or pin it so you can find it when you want it, as these reference guides can be surprisingly hard to find.
When it doubt, throw it in. That’s the beauty of single stream!
Back to the economics for a minute: aluminum cans are “infinitely recyclable”, and represent lots of ‘embodied energy’, thus they are the most valuable of recyclables. Metals like aluminum foil and tin cans are the “treasure in the trash”. Because aluminum cans are made from bauxite, a finite mineral strip-mined from the earth’s crust, it’s especially important to recycle them always.
After metals, plastic is the second most valuable material for recyclers, especially #1 (PET) and #2 (HDPE), which are recycled into furniture, playgrounds, puff clothing, and carpeting.
Now here’s where things get complicated, because I can’t help throwing children’s health into the economics mix. I think it’s so interesting that the most valuable recyclables, plastic #1 and #2, are also the safest for food. We don’t know much about plastic in our food supply, but what we do know isn’t good. Of course true blue greenies reading this post will have been drinking from glass or metal containers for years.
Avoid plastic #3 PVC (sometimes called the ‘poison plastic’) as well as #6 and #7.
Back to that naughty red solo cup, which is polystyrene #6, a kind of styrofoam. Styrofoam has been listed by the EPA as a possible human carcinogen, and when it melts into your soup or coffee, you can taste the plastic.
Eco-Mama says: “Don’t drink plastic, kids”! Try to avoid Styrofoam as graciously as possible so you don’t turn into one of those weird people with all sorts of annoying food rules that are impossible to follow. Beyond health considerations, styrofoam is not recyclable.
The red solo cups, and other styrofoam pieces, are optically sorted out of the single stream process, and disposed of as true waste. Technically, red solo cups ARE recyclable, but you’ll have to organize your own field trip to find out for sure.
Do NOT throw grocery bags into the single stream receptacle (although the recycle facility will indeed sort them out later.) Return your grocery bags to your friendly grocery store, or bring your own shopping bags to market, to market, to buy a fat pig.
Here’s a photo of a superior collapsible shopping “bag” you can buy at Schnucks for about $5. As a bonus, the baggers in the check out line find the boxes much easier to load than bags, and if you keep to your grocery list and within the limits of the box, you will significantly reduce impulse purchases.
A box for your bagger
And to help you remember that plastic grocery bags have nowhere to go, here’s an amusing “mockumentary” about what happens to the “majestic plastic bag” as it searches for a home during it’s long lonely life:
If you sneak a peak inside your own recycling bin, it comes as no surprise that paper and cardboard comprise the bulk of recycling waste stream by volume; paper gets bundled and shipped to Iowa or deadheaded to China. Bring on that dream of a truly paperless society! Don’t make me upload pictures of clear-cut old growth forests turned into direct mail envelopes.
Enough about what to recycle, here are your tips for hosting a recycle field trip: A group of about 20 – 30 people seems to be the right number for this field trip; a smaller group works just as well. It might be nice to team up with another organization to maximize numbers and enjoy the synergistic effects.
The first half of the field trip is a lecture by Gary in a nice conference room with video cameras, and the second half is a tour of the plant. Plan on spending about two hours, plus travel time to Earth City. The location is well marked on GPS maps: Resource Management Company; 4375 Ryder Trail North, Earth City, MO; 63045
Again, here’s the contact information for Gary Gilliam: 314-770-9898, Gary_g@rmcrecycle.com.
It’s fun to watch the bulldozers and dumpers come in; count the dumpers and turn it into a math exercise on volume. Count the number of workmen pulling pieces from the line and make some calculations; labor is a big expense for recycling companies. On the other hand, it also represents job creation in the new “green economy.”
Study each machine to fully understand its job, and challenge yourself to make a map of the assembly line after you come out. Notice that the plastic grocery bags that have no place to go. Look for red solo cups. Ponder the magnitude of our waste stream and wonder where it all comes from and where it all goes. Ask about the odd things that find their way into the recycle center. (hint: lots of eyeglasses and TV remote controls, which get recycled along with the newspapers!)
Again, there is something life-changing about real life experiences as opposed to watching video, so go in person if you can. If you go, be aware there is broken glass everywhere, and that a fine plastic dust fills the air; if you have asthma or are sensitive to respiratory issues, this may not be a good trip for you. Bring sturdy shoes and maybe a N95 face mask. The footing is fine, you will be walking on stairs with grates, sometimes covered with broken glass; but this is definitely not a place for high heels or fancy shoes.
I personally would not bring little kids on this field trip, due to the broken glass and air quality conditions. This is a good tour to do when it’s too hot, or too cold, for comfortable outdoor adventures. The work area is exposed; it was a cold day when we visited, and we were cold. If you visit in summer, you will be hot.
I urge you to take a moment after the field trip to reflect on what you’ve learned, integrate it into your learning, and share that with those around you through blogging, Facebook, Instagram, graphic visuals, funny videos, etc. Let me know if you go, by posting what I forgot to mention in the comment section below, thus helping future adventurers.
I leave you with this green coffee cup video by those smart and funny med students at Washington University:
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Green Spiral Tours
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