Grade schoolers celebrate state’s birthday
Staff writer
Students at Marion Elementary School, many of them dressed in western, prairie, and state sports team apparel, celebrated Kansas’ 164th birthday Jan. 29.
Students went from learning station to learning station, sampled Kansas art projects, played sunflower-themed games, listened to a cowboy poet and songwriter, and got up close and personal with Kansas wildlife — in this case, a prairie kingsnake.
Colt Ewert of Great Plains Nature Center told students that Kansas farmers appreciated kingsnakes because they were immune to rattlesnake venom and liked to eat rattlesnakes.
After talking to them and passing around a molted snakeskin, he invited students to touch the kingsnake.
He told them to use two fingers to touch the back of the snake. Several students touched it and said it didn’t feel like they had expected.