April 20, 2022 | Gianluca Vella | Innisfil, ON
Students in the Enviroventure Program at Nantyr Shores Secondary School experienced the process of collecting maple sap and turning it into delicious maple syrup. Canada produces 85% of the world’s maple syrup, and spring is the best time to collect maple sap.
At the beginning of April, the Enviroventure students went to Webster Park in Innisfil, where they collected sap from the maple trees each day that week. Two of the students, Max H. and Arden D. said that this was “a great hands-on learning experience that taught them how to harvest maple sap and identify trees”.
They collected two and a half barrels of maple sap. Which, student Max H. says, “is about ninety-five percent water, so out of the fifty gallons we’ve collected we’re only going to get about a gallon of syrup after boiling it down.” About forty gallons of maple sap is needed to get one gallon of maple syrup.
The students said they enjoyed the process and after collecting the sap, the students filled up their own bottles and were able to boil it down into maple syrup. The students had a fun time going to the park and tapping the maple trees. They took photos and made great memories of this, in addition to the other cool experiences this program has to offer.
The Enviroventure class is doing a lot of experiential learning activities and providing students with opportunities to build their teamwork skills, gain knowledge about the outdoors and learn more about their own capabilities.