Wendy Pfrenger first encountered the University of Mississippi’s Ecology Day Camp as a parent, when her son joined other kids at a Lafayette County complex for a week of hands-on science learning. It was the summer of 2018—her son’s first in Mississippi—and Pfrenger remembers him proudly bringing home a wetlands diorama with insects caught and preserved at the site.
“It was my son’s favorite camp when he was little,” Pfrenger, who now serves as director of pre-college programs at the university, told the Mississippi Free Press. “This was his first time living in Mississippi, so getting to know this new place and these new bugs … was really helpful for him.”
Today, Pfrenger remains involved with the camp in a professional capacity, helping to preserve its hands-on philosophy and bring kids closer to nature. The program has evolved and expanded over its 25-year history, adding new weekly themes and educational opportunities in response to growing interest. It has also benefited from an array of expert counselors and instructors, from local schoolteachers and university scientists to Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality staff.
Throughout its evolution, however, the program has retained its core mission of immersing kids in the natural world.
“We really want them to have those direct contact with nature experiences,” Pfrenger said. “That’s the goal—to really make sure they can explore and wonder.”
Learning Through Doing
The Ecology Day Camp seeks to make environmental science engaging and accessible by capitalizing on North Mississippi’s abundant natural resources. Launched in 2001, the program is based out of the University of Mississippi Field Station—a nearly 800-acre research space in Abbeville, Mississippi, with a variety of terrain, vegetation and wildlife.
The station serves as an outdoor laboratory for campers each summer, Pfrenger explained, allowing them to experience different plant and animal species up close and use some of the scientific equipment housed on site.
“I’m always impressed every year at how many people who live here locally don’t even know the Field Station exists,” Pfrenger said. “It’s this wonderful little gem, and once people know about it, they want to keep coming back.”
The camp is open to rising first through sixth graders and runs for a total of six weeks, each of them dedicated to a different ecological theme selected by the staff. Themes range from water bodies and hydrology to insects and wild animals, and campers complete regular field work and assignments to better understand the subject matter.
These include designing birds’ nests using found materials and analyzing water samples under a microscope, as well as conducting population analyses using basic probability. Campers also keep naturalist journals to keep track of wildlife sightings during daily excursions around the complex.
“Every morning, (counselors) take the kids for a wildlife observation trip around the Field Station and let them spot and observe whatever comes to their attention,” Pfrenger said. “It’s academic, but it also really invites … experiential and exploratory encounters with the natural world.”
These immersive encounters also speak to camp counselors like Holly Stewart, a longtime schoolteacher who joined the Ecology Day Camp staff a decade ago. Stewart taught seventh grade science in the Oxford School District for 18 years, but she grew increasingly disillusioned with the limited opportunities for hands-on learning and the growing emphasis on computers.
“That is why I love coming out to ecology camp in the summer and being able to teach science the way that I want to,” Stewart, whose daughter also became a camp counselor after graduating from the University of Mississippi in 2022, told the Mississippi Free Press. “This is where I get to put my passion and love of science to work.”
By teaching campers to fashion wind chimes out of branches or practice sustainable fishing in Field Station ponds, Stewart feels she’s able to provide young Mississippians with knowledge and opportunities they might not get elsewhere.
“At other camps, they’re either in a classroom all day or in a building,” she said. “Here, we’re outside 90% of the day … looking at the (world) around us, observing and connecting with it.”
Inspiring Adventure
While counselors like Stewart form the backbone of Ecology Day Camp, the program’s location opens the door to additional learning opportunities. The Field Station is a hub for university researchers and other local scientists, and some have volunteered to lead camp activities and contribute to weekly themes.
“Over the years, (we’ve) been able to expand the program and speak more to the expertise around us,” Pfrenger said. University faculty have stopped by to discuss Mississippi’s role in migratory bird flyways, she told the Mississippi Free Press, and a pair of biologists regularly visit the camp to share their spider collection with the students.
As the Ecology Day Camp enters its 25th summer, Pfrenger is working on making its core activities more accessible to children with mobility issues. She also hopes to secure enough funding to organize regular field trips around North Mississippi, allowing campers to experience ecological sites like the fish hatchery at Lake Enid.
“There’s some really, really cool things that are unique to our part of the state,” she said. “That’s a big point of emphasis for us in this program, and we would love to be able to work that in.”
For now, though, the camp remains a space where children can stray out of their comfort zones and learn something in the process, Pfrenger concluded.
“We have had kids who have never really had scrapes on their knees before,” she said. “It’s an adventure, it very much feels like it to the kids, and I’m glad we can offer that to them.”
The Ecology Day Camp runs from June 1, 2026, to July 17, 2026. Weeks 1 and 6 are for rising fifth and sixth graders. Weeks 2 and 4 are for rising first and second graders. Weeks 3 and 6 are for rising third and fourth graders. The camp costs $195 per child per week. Parents may register for the latter half of this year’s program at outreach.olemiss.edu.
