LONG LIVE THE TURTLES

Today's field trip is to a real field ... along with some marshes and the river.  My students and I will be exploring some wetlands formed by glaciers that used to cover New England.

Along our pond stop, we encounter a muskrat, a woodpecker that comes right up to us and lands not two feet away, and turtles.  The kids are fascinated with the turtles, for some odd reason, and we spend a longer-than-planned amount of time at the pond.

While we are at the pond, our guide shows us a recently-dug-open snapping turtle nest.  She hands around pieces of shell from the hatchlings, and then the students are back searching the pond's surface for turtles (finding them, naming them, etc.).

Finally, after a long day of fresh air and sunshine, it's time to head back to school.  Soon after, it's time to head home.  I take off going the back way; I have an errand to run.  I finish my after-school errand and start heading home, realizing that I got maybe a touch too much sun.

This is where I see it.  A truck on the other side of the road has stopped to let a substantially large turtle cross the road.  Awwwwwwww.  What a nice driver."  I slow down to almost stopping, but this is dangerous here.  There's a blind curve that I just came around, and someone coming up behind me won't even see my car before hitting it.  I continue on my way until...

Chah-LUNK, chah-LUNK!!!!

I don't dare glance in my rearview mirror.  Look, I really didn't see the other turtle.  Apparently, though, I found it, or, rather, my tire found it.

Ooops.  Sorry.  I may have even just broken a conservation law.  Truly, truly sorry. 

I don't think I'll let my students know, though.  They should just go on believing that every turtle is sacred; long live the marsh turtles!