JACKSON -- Take five large steps forward.

Stop and sit down. Look carefully at the ground by your feet. Draw one thing that you see.

So six eighth-graders began their silent, solo journeys into the woods at the Murie Ranch in Grand Teton National Park.

Each chose an evergreen tree, touched its branches, felt the rough bark and gave it a name and a hug. They returned 15 minutes later, feeling relaxed, peaceful.

"I felt like nothing bad could happen," Samantha Hanson, a student at Pine Bluff Junior-Senior High school, said. "I was happy because of all the noises, but not like wild noises -- calming noises."

It was the first time that the students from Laramie and Cheyenne hugged a tree. They also studied animal scat, tested water quality at the Snake River and made art with sticks and stones from the forest.

Against the backdrop of the Tetons, 78 Wyoming students ventured outdoors and brainstormed ways to get kids outside during the first Wyoming Youth Congress on Children and Nature, held from Friday to today. The average eighth-grader spends four hours each day in front of an electronic screen, according to Larry Selzer, CEO of the Conservation Fund.

"We have a whole host of problems now that we didn't have when kids played outside," Selzer said.

The Conservation Fund and several organizations met three years ago to talk about the gap between children and nature but found they were missing piece of the solution -- the voice of the kids. The Teton Science Schools in Jackson accepted the challenge and partnered with state and national organizations such as the National Park Service and the Wyoming Governor's Task Force on Recreation to plan the congress.

Every school district was invited to send two representatives. Adults from Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado and Washington, D.C., also came to observe, learn and plan programs and resources for children and families.

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Students introduced themselves between bites of Wyoming-grown prime rib and rainbow trout. They were leaders in class, sports and band. They played video games. They also hunted deer and camped in Yellowstone.

"These kids do outside stuff with their parents," Kimberly Scher, graduate student and instructor at the Teton Science Schools, said. "The question is how do we get them to go with their friends."

During the weekend, students restored overused trails and pulled old fence posts. They met people who work at the National Elk Refuge and National Museum of Wildlife Art. They prepared themselves to share their stories and ideas with friends and family back home.

And they had ideas.

School gets in the way of going outside, they said. After spending eight hours in school and three hours on homework, there isn't any time for the outdoors. Every subject can be taught outside, if the teacher is creative enough, Joe Rubino, a student at Laramie Junior High School, said. He created outdoor art – a sculpture made of found wood -- for the first time earlier that day.

"There's so much you can do with art and poetry outside," he said.

When asked if they felt stressed out often, nearly all of the students raised their hands -- to the surprise of the adults observing on the side. The same number of hands went up when asked if being outside took a little of that stress away. Many said they don't go outside because they don't know places close to home.

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At dusk on Friday night, cars rushed to exit the park. Only 20 feet away from the road, students from Rock Springs crouched in a field of sagebrush, waiting. Just as the sun slipped behind the mountains, the elk made their call.

Minutes earlier, they weren't thrilled to gaze at the herd of elk in the distance. Some had seen them in their backyards. It was getting cold outside. But when the first bugle sounded, everyone went quiet.

More moments and stories would happen in the next few days, but this night was different.

They had to tell their friends about this one.

Reach education reporter Jackie Borchardt at (307) 266-0593 or at jackie.borchardt@trib.com. Read her education blog at tribtown.trib.com/reportcard