Eighth-grade students from Polk County Middle School visited Walnut Grove Plantation near Spartanburg, S.C. recently as part of their study of Colonial America. Students participated in a program entitled “Surviving Colonial America.” Walnut Grove is a preserved 18th century plantation that illustrates life in the backcountry Piedmont of North and South Carolina. While visiting, students learned hands-on how to create shelters for survival in the backcountry and how colonists traded with the Cherokee in the western Carolinas. (photo submitted by Eric Eaton)