Daily Times • Chris Shores

Who and where: Western Coventry Elementary School third graders created this quilt display to show who they met and where they visited.

Learning to love Coventry

Jessica Carr • Daily Times

COVENTRY CENTER — Whether you've lived in Coventry for all of your life or you've just recently moved here, the community at Western Coventry School feels most are not aware of all of the "wonderful, cultural, natural and historical places the town has to offer its residents."

Parker Woodland... ever been there? It's a beautifully maintained natural hiking trail in Western Coventry located off Maple Valley Road.

Read School House... ever been there? It's a nationally recognized historical schoolhouse dating back to the earliest days of documented education in the town.

The Nathaniel Green Homestead, ever been there? It really was built by Nathanael Greene during the time of George Washington and it is still standing right here in the town of Coventry. Today it is still furnished with many of Greene's original belongings.

Briar Point Beach... ever been there? No, it's not 20 minutes away and no, it's not a saltwater ocean beach. It's a public access beachfront right here in the town on Lake Tiogue.

"We have all of these absolutely wonderful places, right here in our own community and many people do not even take advantage of them," said Joyce Martinelli, one of the third grade teachers at Western Coventry Elementary School who helped her fellow third grade teachers to coordinate this service learning grant funded program entitled "People and Places in Coventry." "I donot think people realize how fortunate we are, but we want to make them aware and we want them to go and visit these places."

Once the teachers and their third grade students visited each of the places of particular interests in the town for themselves, they generated enough information to create a Web site complete with pictures, and guidelines about each site. Their goal, Martinelli said, was to create an easy way to share their knowledge of their newfound wonders right around them with the rest of the residents in the Town of Coventry.

To learn more about each of the sites that the third graders at Western visited or just to glance at what else the students at Western have been up to, visit the school Web site .   http://schools.coventryschools.net/western/                                  '