Greater Pike helps students connect with nature

Sixth graders at the Dingman-Delaware Middle School in Dingmans Ferry, will take part in a unique environmental program this school year thanks to a special fund at Greater Pike Community Foundation. Pennsylvania Trout in the Classroom, a program that teaches about science and conservation as students raise their own trout right in their school rooms, is enabled through the Richard L. Snyder Chair of Conservation Studies Fund at Greater Pike.

“Each year we are seeing new groups of students access something they wouldn’t have encountered otherwise, thanks to this fund,” said Jayson Pope, assistant superintendent of schools, who oversees the program for the district. Pope is also a board member at Greater Pike. “The fund provides exposure and opportunities for these kids. This year’s Trout in the Classroom, for example, offers valuable educational experiences that these sixth graders wouldn’t have otherwise.”

Fund helps students continue legacy of conservation

The Richard L. Snyder Chair of Conservation Studies Fund has supported a variety of initiatives in its few short years of existence. The first project was to construct a nature trail connecting the back of the high school campus to the river access point behind Milford Landing. “May Brothers Landscaping cleared the trail and laid down crushed stone,” Pope said. “It’s easily walkable and in fact, DV’s cross-country runners use it.”

In addition, teachers in environmental science use the trail for riverside classes, while student members of the extracurricular Environmental Club make use of the trail and river access to take samples, research species and otherwise study the local ecology.

Campers have also enjoyed the trail. In 2025, elementary and middle-school children taking part in the DV-ACE summer camp, sponsored by Delaware Valley Adult and Community Education, used the campus and the trail in an adventure devised by the Pocono Environmental Education Center. “PEEC built a whole curriculum for us, with a new program every week,” said Pope. “The kids were down on that trail for eight weeks.”

This year’s funding is going toward the Trout in the Classroom program sponsored by the Pennsylvania Council of Trout Unlimited and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission. It will be integrated into the sixth-grade curriculum, Pope said, as “an interdisciplinary environmental education program” studying watershed conservation and cold-water ecosystems, and offering recreational opportunities too. Students will explore topics including trout life cycles, aquatic adaptations and water resource conservation. At the end of the school year, the kids will release the trout they have raised into a “Stocked Trout Waterway,” a state-approved stream near the school or within a nearby watershed.

To help ensure the continued expansion of these educational programs, donations to the Richard L. Snyder Chair of Conservation Studies Fund, or any other fund administered by Greater Pike, can be made at www.greaterpike.org/funds. Scroll down to the fund name for the link.