KOSCIUSKO — The Lilly Center hosted its 10th-annual Lake Adventure Days this week. Almost 600 fourth-grade students from 10 schools all over Kosciusko County attended the two-day field trip.

As in previous years, the event focused on hands-on education. Students rotated through five education-packed stations. They used special equipment to sample water from the lake, built mini-watersheds, competed in an exercise to learn how to save water, created a water-themed craft and even went fishing.

Lindsay Moseley, a Grace College student who volunteered at a fishing station, remembers a special moment: “One little boy was loving it. He was laughing and smiling and doing a really good job at casting out his reel,” Moseley described. “His teacher told me that the little boy hadn’t laughed all year. That is why we do events like this one,” Moseley added. “It’s for that one student who hasn’t laughed all year and comes on this field trip and finds his laugh again.”

Lake Adventure Days is arranged by Caitlin Yoder, education coordinator at the Lilly Center. The Lilly Center teamed with local volunteers and the Grace College School of Education to manage the event and teach the lessons. Participating elementary schools that enjoyed the events included Claypool, Eisenhower, Harrison, Jefferson, Lincoln, North Webster, Triton, Warsaw Christian, Washington STEM Academy and local homeschoolers.

Sponsors of the 2018 Lake Adventure Days event included Bart’s Water Sports, City of Warsaw Stormwater Utility, DePuy Synthes, Lake City Bank, Lake Tippecanoe Property Owners, The Papers, Inc., Warsaw Breakfast Optimist Club, Warsaw Kiwanis and Zimmer Biomet.