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Apr

2

K-12 Activities: Monitoring Biological Diversity

Filed Under Activities, Biological Diversity, Outdoor education, Place-based Education, Schoolyard Classroom, Science, Sustainability | Leave a Comment

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by Roxine Hameister

Developing a biodiversity monitoring project at your school can help students develop many skills in an integrated manner. Here are some simple ideas that you can use to get your students started.

Children and teachers are being pulled in many directions. Children want to “learn by doing/’ but because of societal fears for children’s safety, they are very often not allowed to play outdoors and learn at will. Teachers are encouraged to meet the unique learning styles of all students but the classroom reality often means books and pictures rather than hands-on experiences. In addition, children are under considerable pressure to be thinking about their futures and what further, post secondary, education they might be considering.

Sometimes children just like science. Many are of the “naturalist intelligence” and enjoy learning how to classify their world. Activities that meet all these requirements are within schools’ meagre budgets and are indeed possible. These projects are equally possible for the teacher with little science or biology background knowledge. The science skills are readily picked up; being systematic about collecting and recording the data is the main skill needed. The curriculum integration that is possible from these projects range from field studies to computer skills, to art and literature; the entire curriculum is covered in these activities. Read more

Mar

11

Winging Northward—A Shorebird’s Journey

Filed Under Activities, Biological Diversity, Climate change, Environmental Health, Schoolyard Classroom, Science | Leave a Comment

shorebirdmazatlanby Sandy Frost and Ben Swecker

For many people, a trip to Alaska is the dream of a lifetime. Yet cost and logistics keep many people away. In 2002, a group of dedicated educators joined forces to make such a visit— if only a ‘virtual’ visit—a reality for thousands of children across the Western Hemisphere. Blending good, old-fashioned interpretation and education know-how with technology, the Winging Northward—A Shorebird’s Journey distance-learning project brought the amazing resources of the Copper River Delta, Alaska to a diverse audience. This innovative and ambitious project developed over three years. The following article chronicles the miles traveled, and those yet to come, for this effort.

Mar

10

Review: Ten-Minute Field Trips

Filed Under Biological Diversity, Outdoor education, Reviews, Schoolyard Classroom | Leave a Comment

A Teacher’s Guide to Using the Schoolgrounds for Environmental Studies

Review courtesy of Fletcher Brown, University of Montana
Author unknown

Environmental education for children growing up in urban areas is often limited to a single trip to a forest preserve or state park.  The hidden message behind such field trips is that the environment must be sought, and that their local community is not a part of a greater ecology.  Helen Ross Russell believes that environmental education can be taught in all locales, including the hard-topped schoolyards common in urban areas.  Ten-Minute Field Trips provides opportunities for students to learn about the natural processes occurring all around them, to develop a concern about the misuse of this planet, and foster a willingness and ability to initiate and support positive action on the basis of this knowledge.

The book begins with a short chapter making a strong case for schoolyard field trips — they are available to all schools; are conducive to repeated trips throughout a day, week, or school year; can easily and spontaneously be integrated into a daily lesson, even in a tightly structured teaching environment; and can be the springboard for a greater depth of inquiry by students.  Before launching into field-trip ideas, there is a short chapter emphasizing the importance of fostering curiosity in learners of all ages.  Russell believes that:

If schools are going to have a meaningful role in today’s world, they
must be more than dispensers of information and places to read; they
must keep alive the natural spark of curiosity, they must nurture the
ability to think, they must permit a child to grow.

The remainder of Ten-Minute Field Trips is filled with ideas for providing students opportunities to do the above.  The activities are divided up under the headings of “Plants,” “Animals,” “Interdependence of Living Things,” “Physical Science,” “Earth Science,” and “Ecology.”  Each section is divided into several subsections.  For example, “Animals” is broken into Vertebrate Animals, Birds, Animal Tracks, Insects and Other Arthropods, and Earthworms.  Each section and subsection provides background for the teacher about the general subject, classroom activities that may be taught in conjunction with the field trips, suggestions for teacher preparation, and field trip possibilities.  The field trip ideas are intentionally fairly vague, so as to be relevant to a wide variety of age groups, skill levels, and school environments.  For example, one of the Earth Science field trips suggests observing nearby waterways, including gutters of city streets.  In this field trip, students are asked to observe the difference in the load carried by rapidly flowing water compared to slowly moving water; to find waterfalls, deltas, canyons, or outwash plains; to build a dam and observe the change in water flow and siltation.  Students in urban or rural schoolyards, from kindergarten through high school, could engage in this activity, focusing on anything from an aesthetic appreciation of water systems to the physics of water dynamics.

Although originally published in 1973, Ten-Minute Field Trips is as relevant today as it was thirty years ago.  It is full of great ideas for teachers who may not think that their teaching environment is conducive to hands-on environmental education, as well as for those who do.  With stories and obvious excitement for the topic, Russell creates both a useful manual and an interesting read.  Although written in the context of schools, most of the activities could be integrated into day and residential camp programs, nature centers, or family experiences.  As Russell points out, Ten-Minute Field Trips is not a complete teaching guide, it merely “suggests possibilities which the teacher can select and adapt as a starting point.”  Whether teaching in a hard-topped city school, or wild and green summer camp, this book can be a valuable resource for educators of all subjects who want to infuse their curricula with experiential activities that bring the local environment home.

Feb

24

Connecting students and salmon in their watershed

Filed Under Biological Diversity, Marine/Aquatic Education, Place-based Education, Programs | 1 Comment

salmon3bHow rearing salmon in an elementary classroom can foster powerful teaching and learning in the content areas, environmental awareness, and good stewardship of the Earth

By Daniel S. King, PhD

My transition in January of last year to a new position teaching science, math, and technology to 5th graders at STARBASE ATLANTIS on Navy Base Kitsap has caused me to reflect on my 11 years as an elementary school teacher.

There is no doubt that my work as a public school teacher was rewarding in countless ways; however, the most profound, meaningful, and enjoyable experience for me during my years as an elementary school teacher was participating in a Salmon in the Classroom Project. Likewise, I believe the project has had a positive and enduring impact on the hundreds of students that participated along with me.

For 10 years my students and I raised salmon in the classroom and then released them into Clear Creek in Silverdale, Washington which is located on the Kitsap Peninsula.
Read more

Jan

2

Humane Education for a Humane World

Filed Under Activities, Biological Diversity, Justice and Equity, Outdoor education, Reviews | Leave a Comment

Animal CollageHumane education examines the challenges facing our planet, from human oppression and animal exploitation to materialism and ecological degradation.  It explores how we might live with compassion and respect for everyone.

by Zoe Weil

In 1987, I offered several courses in a summer program for middle school students at the University of Pennsylvania.  The courses met from 9-5 and lasted 5 days.  One of the classes I offered was on our treatment of animals and another was on the environment.  In each course, we went on field trips.  In the class on the environment, we visited a recycling center, a wildlife rehabilitation center, and held a Council of All Beings on a protected beach.  In the course on animals, we visited an animal shelter, a farmed animal sanctuary and conducted a critical review of conditions for animals at the zoo.  We watched videos about what was happening to animals and the environment, wrote letters to elected officials and CEOs of polluting companies, and created campaign, slogan and T-shirt ideas for activism.

When the two weeks were over, I was astounded by what had taken place.

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Zoe Weil is the co-founder and president of the International Institute for Humane Education (IIHE) which, through and affiliation with Cambridge College, offers a distance-learning M.Ed. in humane education which is the first and only program of its kind in the U.S.  IIHE also offers its acclaimed Sowing Seeds humane education workshops monthly around the U.S. and Canada.  Zoe is the author of The Power and Promise of Humane Education and Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times.  For more information about IIHEís training programs and Sowing Seeds workshops, visit www.IIHEd.org.

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