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Apr

7

From Screens to Streams: Using Technology as a “Bridge” to the Outdoors

Filed Under Citizen scientists, Environmental Literacy, Marine/Aquatic Education, Place-based Education, Programs, Science, Social studies, Sustainability, Technology | Leave a Comment

EricBeck
Rather than viewing technology as an enemy of environmental literacy, technology-based learning can help cultivate an environmental sensibility by serving as a “bridge” to the outdoors.

By Ryan Johnson

When I was ten years old, I was absolutely obsessed with the original Nintendo Entertainment System. My cousins had one, my best friend had one, it seemed like everyone I knew had a Nintendo. I would have done just about anything to have one as well, but my parents refused, despite my continuous complaints and numerous solicitations.

I thought I was the most neglected ten-year-old child in the world, while my parents, patiently suffering my pleas, would remind me that the Beartooth, Big Horn, and Pryor Mountains, the McCullough Peaks, and Shoshone River were just beyond my doorstep. These natural features were, in fact, truly magnificent and unavoidable constituents of the landscape, dominating every view with snow-capped peaks, granite cliff faces, rainbow-colored bluffs, and crystal clear riffles, containing everything from wild horses to Grizzly Bears to rattlesnakes. Now, perhaps needless to say, I prize every single second I am able to gaze upon the mountains and deserts of northern Wyoming, and I cherish every memory of running through alpine forests and mountain biking through tumbling sage brush. But a conscious acknowledgement of my privilege of being born into such natural wonder eluded me, and as a result I still found modern, escapist forms of entertainment media seductive. Even in a place completely dominated by mountains, peaks, rivers, valleys, prairie, and high desert, I still found a way to explore MTV far more often than Heart Mountain. Read more

Feb

22

High School Students Earn University of Washington Credit in Oceanography

Filed Under Citizen scientists, Higher Education, Marine/Aquatic Education, Oceans | 1 Comment

by Richard Strickland, University of Washington School of Oceanography and Timothy Stetter, University of Washington Professional and Continuing Education

UWoceanography2This fall, as flocks of new freshmen swarm to college campuses, many of them are bringing along college credits that they earned while they were still in high school. Some of them earned the credits by taking Advanced Placement exams, and others took detours from their home schools to attend classes on college campuses.

Some students, however, earned college credits by taking classes from their own teachers in their own high schools. The University of Washington (UW) offers a program in which leading teachers, guided by UW faculty mentors, teach at a college level and students can earn UW credit. Read more

Jan

15

Citizen scientists tackle ocean “dead zones along Oregon coast

Filed Under Biological Diversity, Citizen scientists, Climate change, Food, Marine/Aquatic Education, Sustainability | Leave a Comment

ediblePortlandmagazineEdible Portland has an article this month about how local fishermen and crabbers off the Oregon coast are working together with scientists from Oregon State University to monitor areas of hypoxia (low or no oxygen in ocean waters) to learn why it’s happening and how sustainable practices in their industry can help address the problem. Read the article here.

Dec

3

Best of Clearing CD-ROM Now Available!

Filed Under Art and EE, Biological Diversity, Climate change, Energy Alternatives, Energy Conservation, Environmental Health, Environmental Literacy, Forests, General public, Guest Commentary, Higher Education, Interviews, Justice and Equity, Language arts, Marine/Aquatic Education, Mathematics, Non-formal, Outdoor education, Perspectives, Programs, Questioning strategies, Resources, Reviews, Schoolyard Classroom, Science, Secondary, Service learning, Social studies, Sustainability, Technology, restoration, salmon | Leave a Comment

BOCcd-romcoverCTR.inddThe discs have been burned, and the packaging has been assembled, and the first batch of CD-ROMs featuring “The Best of Clearing, Volume VI” have been mailed out!

If you haven’t seen the advertising on this website, or seen reference to this document before, you should check it out… the best articles, activities, and reviews from past issues of Clearing compiled and published together on a CD-ROM. “The Best of Clearing, Volume VI” is a way to get the best of back issues of Clearing at a very low price (even less than the previous cost of a one-year subscription!).

And just so you know, we’ll soon be republishing an earlier B.O.C — Volume V — which gathers even more great articles from the recent past (think Mike Weilbacher, Jim Martin, and others) in one convenient reference volume for your resource library.

If you’re interested in helping to keep Clearing alive, this is one way to do it. Buy a copy of Volume VI in CD-ROM and keep an eye out for Volume V when it comes available. Click on the “Best of Clearing” link on the nav bar above to buy your copy!

Nov

30

Living with the Ocean

Filed Under Marine/Aquatic Education, Place-based Education, Programs, Resources | Leave a Comment

BecsBoydPic

Exploring Place-based Education Programs in the Pacific Northwest

by Becs Boyd

On the southwest coast of Oregon a small town called Charleston is tucked against a busy dockside lined with fishing and tourist boats. The Oregon Institute of Marine Biology has its base here, in a campus of attractive traditional buildings covered in sun-bleached wooden shakes. I’m here to see OIMB’s amazing track record for bringing the local marine environment to life for local children.

For the past six years a National Science Foundation grant has meant that nine OIMB graduate students a year have been teaching marine biology two days a week in twelve local schools to Grades K-6 (ages 6 to 12), reaching around 3500 students. The result? – a generation of schools and teachers with an excellent knowledge of the sea life at their doorstep, what it looks like, how it works, and the issues and challenges it faces. On the way they learn to think like scientists and are familiar with microscopes, hypotheses, moon phases and zoea. The curriculum framework is cleverly arranged by habitat, with Grade 1 studying rocky shores, Grade 2 sandy shores, Grade 3 estuaries, Grade 4 kelp forests, Grade 5 the open ocean and Grade 6 drawing all they have learned together with the study of islands. Read more

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