CAMP SHERMAN – Outdoor guide Jay Hopp stooped down to the forest floor and picked up some small brown pellets.

”We’ve got elk!” Hopp said, while a handful of sixth-graders squirmed with disgust as he cut the droppings open and asked them how he came to his conclusion.

”It looks like Cocoa Puffs,” a student said. The boys giggled.

Hopp’s question was one of many he asked the Sisters Middle School students Tuesday during a field trip to the Metolius Preserve, a 1,240-acre patch of white fir and ponderosa pines about 11 miles northwest of Sisters.

The land stretches deep into the forest and follows Lake Creek, a tributary to Central Oregon’s Metolius River.

While some students had braved the preserve before, Tuesday marked the final test of an outdoor project organized in part by Hopp. He is the education director for Wolftree Inc., a nonprofit based in Portland and Central Oregon that provides science education programs to local schools.

”They get outside and engage their senses that they don’t get to use in the classroom,” Hopp said. ”Even though they live in Sisters, they don’t get outside often.”

That changed Tuesday.

About 25 middle school students piled into a bus and drove deep into the woods down a rough cinder road to a clearing in the forest.

After stuffing their pockets with rulers, pencils and neon compasses, they divided into teams that either scurried through the forest or waded into the creek. The boys and girls tested their skills at everything from finding their way north to identifying bugs.

One of Hopp’s first assignments for his forest team involved guessing the age of trees. Students spun a black rod into a ponderosa pine and dug into its heart, pulling out a moist line of pulp with rings that told stories of fire and drought.

Then he showed them bubbly saliva on a small plant – the marks of a spit bug that looks like a tick and covers itself in foam for protection.

”What do they do in their spit?” Hopp asked.

”They mate,” a student said.

Hopp tried to remain serious, then laughed.

”That’s not very romantic,” he said.

Downriver, another group of students grabbed nets and oversized water pants, then followed their guide into the creek.

Kathy Schrage, a longtime employee of the U.S. Forest Service, led a handful of middle school students into the water where they learned how to catch crawfish.

”It’s four or five hours of freedom to run around the forest and collect things,” she said. ”They get out of school.”

That’s what Austin Hicks, a sixth-grader, liked best about Tuesday’s field trip to the Metolius Preserve.

”We’re not in six classes per day,” he said.

Brennan Layne, a sixth-grader, agreed with Hicks.

”It’s just something different,” he said. ”Best of all – there’s no homework.”