Sometimes it’s what one learns outside the classroom that enhances one’s academic prowess and social skills, even for special-needs, or exceptional, students.

Ginny Batts, a teacher of exceptional children at Northside High School, knows that. So, that’s why she brought four such students to Washington on Thursday. The excursion for the four students, their adult caregivers and others provided an opportunity to enhance the students’ academic knowledge and social skills č and have fun doing it.

“We do this outings to increase their social relationships,” Batts said Batts. “We went earlier to the Transition Fair, and that was an opportunity for them to see what was available job-wise, school-wise and, again, to get them with their peers … and to get them into a larger social setting to see how they do. They did very well.”

Batts said some exceptional children open up and mingle well in such settings. As for working with four students, Batts said, that provides more one-to-one time between the teacher and each student.

As important as classroom time is, it’s just as important for the students to learn about the community and what the community and students have to offer each other, she said.

“It’s an effort with schools and community combined,” Batts said. “It is life skills and academics together.”

After attending the Transition Fair the students visited the North Carolina Estuarium, where they were educated and entertained by Linda Boyer, an environmental educator at the Estuarium. To help expose the students to life found in wetlands and swamps, Boyer led the students in singing several songs such as “Ain’t No Bugs on Me” and incorporated puppets into her presentation. Boyer played the banjo while leading the singing.

Boyer used an collection of items, mostly stuffed insects and animals such as a butterfly, ladybug, dragonfly, snake, bear and turtle found in wetlands and swamps. The students also viewed the Estuarium’s water-cycle sculpture, which demonstrates evaporation, condensation and precipitation and how water makes its way from the mountains in the western part of the state to the Atlantic Ocean at the state’s eastern end.

“I really want to see them smile. That’s the main thing,” Boyer said when asked what she wanted to accomplish with the students. “To bring them a bit of happiness and help them understand how wonderful nature can be, and the animals can be and how much joy they can bring us all.”

The students and their “entourage” ate lunch at The Meeting Place, dining on the eatery’s deck facing Washington’s waterfront. After lunch, it was off to Wal-Mart to buy material to make Easter decorations.

The students were not identified to protect their privacy.