By Lisa Carolin
The Eddy Discovery Center, located in the Waterloo Recreation Area, now has an all-terrain motorized wheelchair that visitors can use as well as an ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) trail that is 0.3 mile long.
Recently, Tiffany Manning, a special education teacher at Beach Middle School, brought some seventh-graders to the Eddy Discovery Center.
“I chose the seventh-graders because I have a student that uses a wheelchair in that grade,” said Manning. “I saw the all-terrain wheelchair at Eddy when I went hiking with my family, and I immediately knew I wanted this student to use the wheelchair to go on a hike.”
The trail offers multiple stations where kids can play with logs, rocks and dirt, as well as build animal shelters with sticks. It’s surrounded by trees. Manning and her students walked the trail and spent time hiking in the woods.
“One group did the Spring Pond Trail, which was one mile,” said Manning. “We took the all-terrain wheelchair on that one, and it was so much fun. We saw mushrooms, the pond, bugs, and jumped over logs. The other group did the ADA trail and then followed a split off that led to another trail.”
Manning says that she’s amazed the Discovery Center offers use of the all-terrain motorized wheelchair at no cost.
“It is really important for students to play and explore nature,” said Manning. “This all terrain motorized wheelchair opens up nature for students needing physical assistance. We were able to all go out and have a great time together and see roots, fallen trees, and hills. The all-terrain wheelchair made all of nature accessible for my students.”
The students said the wheelchair was a lot of fun, and despite it being a tiring day for some of them, they appreciated the chance to spend it out in nature.
