Today was a field day with one of my favorite groups: the sixth-grade biology classes of Kristi Williams, who teaches life science at Wheeler Middle School in my home town. I've been helping her out for years now, and, about once a month, we get the students outside for observation and collecting trips into the "wild," which, fortunately, happens to include access to nearby woods, fields, and wetlands. Our destination on this gorgeous, sunny day was a wide spot in the Assekonk Brook, and, nets and collecting buckets in hand, we worked the edges of the ponded area. For privacy reasons, I can't show the faces of the kids, but here's part of our haul: a dragonfly nymph riding a "toe biter" true bug; a long-"tailed" dragonfly nymph belonging to the Clubtail family; a backswimmer; and, the star of the show, a young American Eel. Nature really provided.