Teaching stream restoration to alternative middle school students

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Abstract

Students at an alternative middle school program in northwest Washington helped restore a natural creek environment while gaining skills in a variety of disciplines including physical, biological, and social sciences, math and economics, and event planning. Studies occurred both in and outside of traditional classroom settings. This paper, written by AmeriCorps*USA member Emily Notch, was a Jury's Choice Award winner at the 2001 Northwest National Service Symposium hosted by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.

Issue

The varied tasks required to restore a riparian habitat in a stream can teach students numerous lessons in physical, biological and social sciences, math, economics and event planning.

Emily Notch, an AmeriCorps member with the Washington Conservation Corps serving at the Stilly-Snohomish Fisheries Task Force, spent a year working with alternative students from the Voyager Middle School Alternative Program restoring a stream. The Voyager school wanted to supplement the current science curriculum with some outdoor activities and environmental education. This was Notch's opportunity to build a stream-restoration curriculum using Krueger Creek as the classroom.

The challenge was in balancing the community service that needed to be completed with the classroom learning. The riparian habitat restoration was a cooperative effort between the Washington Conservation Corps, the Stilly-Snohomish Fisheries Enhancement Task Force (SSFETF), and the Voyager Middle School Alternative Program.

Action

The stream restoration project provided the students with an opportunity to learn a variety of science and math disciplines while also teaching them responsibility and appreciation for their natural surroundings.

By partnering with the SSFETF, the students were able to work on one project site for the entire year. The SSFETF gave the students its own site along the Krueger Creek to restore in the hopes that "ownership" of the site would help keep the students motivated. The task force also donated $200 and almost 400 trees to the project.

The class assembled a fish tank in late December, allowing it to run during the winter break without eggs. When classes resumed in January, 400 salmon eggs were introduced into the tank, but half of them had died by February due to an unknown source. The remaining eggs did hatch and made healthy progress as young salmon.

While the salmon experienced their various stages of development, the class curriculum included activities addressing lifecycle, ecosystem, healthy versus unhealthy streams, natural versus man-made systems, macroinvertebrates, restoration attempts, mitigation, and riparian zone habitat, with an overall focus on native growth riparian zones.

The trees planted at Krueger Creek were carefully mapped out. Each student created a map of the plants at Krueger Creek prior to any planting. With a current map in hand, students then determined where to plant over 400 plants (a combination of trees and shrubs). Notch visited the classroom several times to co-teach lessons on mapping, including area, scale measurement, parts of a map, and plant selection within a restricted budget. She also used a model to illustrate how buffer zones are necessary for surface water run-off.

At the end of the school year the class learned that the salmon they had raised couldn't be released in Krueger Creek because the eggs had originated from a different watershed. This turned out to be a valuable learning experience for the class, and SSFETF helped them locate a suitable alternative release site.

Context

The Voyager Middle School Alternative Program is a self-contained classroom with up to 17 students. In some cases, the students have failed out of traditional class settings and this alternative class is literally their last chance in the public school system. Some of the students have learning difficulties or behavioral problems.

The Stilly-Snohomish Fisheries Enhancement Task Force directs its resources and energy to the challenge of developing community partnerships and strategies to improve and restore the recreational and commercial fisheries of the Pacific Northwest.

Citation

Notch, Emily. "My Voyages in Teaching Restoration." Stories of Service: National Service in the Northwest. Portland, Oregon: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, 2001.

Outcome

The Voyager students and their teacher designed and constructed their own riparian habitat restoration project from start to finish. The students received a yearlong hands-on education, both in the field and in the classroom, in ecology, botany, hydrology, entomology, geometry, project planning, estimating, budgeting, and social sciences. The project gave the students a view of the real world through daily activities and a chance to gain some out-of-the-ordinary experiences.

A curriculum is being developed from the practices of the program. The goal is to make salmon habitat restoration, and the diversity of disciplines that it encompasses, available to other classrooms.