After walking around the Steelstacks with my peers I envisioned a lot of great ways to use walking as a method for inquiry. While the Steelstacks may seem like a history based location there was a lot to see that was very scientific. One thing I thought of while walking around was the fact that there was a decent amount of vegetation. While there were many gardens making up the area, there were many vines and plants growing throughout the rusted up complex. An assignment I thought would be interesting is how is that possible? How is it possible among all of the rusty metal that green leaves were sprouting and the grass was growing? Another assignment I could have given was comparing the old to the new. We see these large steel buildings and then we can look right across the way and observe the beautiful new Artsquest. I would give my students the task of comparing the two structures based on what they look like, what they are used for, how old they are etc. By doing all of this out in the field students will gain a better understanding through actually seeing these buildings then they would researching them on a computer.

Aside from the Steelstacks, there are plenty of other places in the Lehigh Valley where walking around exploring an area would be a great benefit to a class. The one place I began to think about was Jacobsburg state park. In fact, when I took environmental science at Moravian my freshmen year we walked around Jacobsburg with my professor. It was such a cool experience to view the ecosystems and landscapes that were located in the park. In the Lehigh Valley, some schools can be located in a very city like areas where some students do not have the ability to walk around in a forest. Giving those types of students a chance to go out and explore can be an eye-opening. It gives them the ability to see different ecosystems and the animals that inhabit them that they may not have understood but just sitting down and reading a book. There are many ways students can utilize walking as a method of learning. However, it does not need to stop in the Lehigh Valley. There are many places all over the country where this method can be used and it is up to the teachers to show their students all that is out there.