NORTON - Getting lost along a quarter-mile nature trail behind the L.G. Nourse Elementary School has become harder.

Just follow the fluorescent orange squares that an Eagle Scout candidate put up last Saturday.

Former Nourse student David Sullivan Jr. also installed four wood benches and a podium on the trail for classes, and cleared the trail.

Sullivan says he hopes his Eagle Scout project addresses a concern raised by second-grade teacher Judy LaConte, who suggested the effort last June.

"People really don't know where they're going" beyond a few hundred feet into the woods, Sullivan says. "She said the teachers don't really use it anymore because it had become so rundown. They don't really feel confident."

The 14 new 6 by 6 aluminum squares are numbered and distributed on trees along the trail.

The lowest numbers are closest to the entrance.

A Norton preschool class plans to use the trail this Friday, Sullivan says.

Sullivan says he will put up a sign at the entrance before then.

He led about 30 people from Crew 61, Troop 61 and Pack 61, and Pack 7 of Mansfield, from 8 a.m. to noon last Saturday.

The podium and benches will "help teach the kids about the outdoors so they can have respect for it," Sullivan says.

Sullivan says the next Eagle board of review is in September.

He is a junior at Southeastern Regional Vocational Technical High School in Easton.

MICHAEL GELBWASSER covers Norton for The Sun Chronicle. He can be reached at 508-236-0439 or at mgelbwasser@thesunchronicle.com.