by Mike Weddle
The Jane Goodall Environmental Middle School (JGEMS) is a public charter school in Salem, Oregon focused on conservation biology and technology. We have been doing field-based research with students for 25 years, working at sites located just outside the classroom to sites throughout Oregon. We have found that the formal research projects our 8th graders do provide an engaging and meaningful opportunity for students to apply the skills and knowledge they learn in the classroom to “real life” environmental issues. These formal projects provide a focus for our students that translates into high state test scores, parental satisfaction and several grants.
Step by step in the field
For JGEMS, these research projects are year-long studies in the 8th graders’ conservation biology class. Since the focus of our school is conservation biology, all students in grades 6 to 8 take a full year of con bio as well as their district required science class. That is why our students can spend so much time on this project. For teachers who do not have the luxury of a class devoted to field-based research, this project can be tailored to any length. The format can be copied or replicated, based on the time and resources available. Here is how we do this at JGEMS.
At the end of the 7th grade, after the students have finished their endangered species project presentations in their conservation biology class, they are presented with possible research topics for the coming year. Once they make their choices, the teacher can use the summer to arrange the equipment, agency staff support and research sites for each group. Field trips start in the fall, initially with staff from the partnering agency to explain the project on site. The students spend the day observing and generating questions and possible ways to collect data to answer the questions. They will also try to determine what equipment they will need.
Back in the classroom the students begin their online research with a review of the literature. This is much easier now with the Internet. Students write the introduction portion of their papers. At the same time they are formulating the data sheet they will take with them on the next trip to the site. Invariably, the data sheet will need to be revised, but eventually they will have a usable data sheet and can collect meaningful data on subsequent visits to the site. Our groups typically make four or five site visits.
While students are in class they can now begin writing the methods and materials section of their papers. Once they have finished collecting data they can analyze it and draw conclusions and write those sections of their research paper. Then they are ready to work with their group on their formal presentation with Google Slides.
Presentations
The culminating activity for JGEMS students is the formal presentation of their research findings. We make this a very big deal. We invite panelists from partnering organizations to come to the school to sit on a panel and hear the students present and then to question them about their methods and results.
Take Action
We like to have students give back something to the site or agency they worked with. For example, we had a research group that did a biodiversity inventory of David Sawyer Park in Turner, Oregon. At the end of the project, they guided all the 2nd and 3rd graders from Turner Elementary School around the park in small groups. The students developed engaging activities to teach the younger students about the fungus, lichens, plants and trees in the park.
Another group, after studying water quality in a local stream, spent a morning removing trash from the stream. Countless possibilities present themselves for empowering the students.
Partnerships
Partnerships with government and non-government agencies have been extremely helpful. The U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS)has partnered with us for 23 years through their Newport office. We have also worked extensively with the Oregon Zoo with research projects at the zoo itself and in the field as part of their outreach conservation efforts throughout the Northwest. We have also worked extensively with the public works departments of the City of Salem and the City of Turner. Typically the partner organization will describe a problem or issue that needs to be studied, offer suggestions for data collection, often accompany students for their initial site visits and then review the findings and attend the final research project presentations.
In more than twenty-five years of doing field-based research projects with students, we have learned a few valuable lessons. Hopefully, by listing them here, you will be able to learn more quickly and less painfully than we did.
- 1. Carefully select partnerships that can work. Can the students get the job done? Will it be interesting? Can they collect a large enough sample size to make the results meaningful? Will staff from the collaborating organization be able to visit your classroom? Work with your students in the field? Attend a final presentation
- 2. Can the study be continued in future years? There is great value in ongoing studies that become a school tradition. Each year the project acquires a greater value.
- 3. Make the trips fun. Usually the students will be giving up something to take part in this field experience – missing classes, giving up a weekend day, or working late in the afternoon.
- 4. Feed the kids. My experience is that middle school students need to eat every two hours. Sitting around the table over ice cream is a great time to reflect on the day’s data collection.
- 5. Fill out all the proper forms. All schools and districts have required forms for field trips. Our administration has always been supportive of our fieldwork – except for those times when we have failed to turn in the proper forms at the right time.
- 6. Be sure to let your administrators know ahead of time about your collaborations and fieldwork. Let them become part of the planning, even if it is only a token participation. The last thing you want is for them to read about your exploits in the paper – exploits they know nothing about.
- 7. Scout the site ahead of time. A field experience can go bad in a hurry if the kids, once they arrive at their site, are not able to carry out the project they have spent weeks planning. Granted, that is part of the reality of doing field research, but with middle and high school students, you really want them to have a good experience, not to mention the cost of taking the field trip. You want a good experience for them.
- 8. Don’t be deterred by bad weather. There is so much that has to be set up ahead of time for a field trip, you do not want to postpone because of rain. Invest in good rain gear. A little weather will make the experience more memorable for your students – and for you.
For the students, parents, teachers and community partners, our field-based research projects have become the culminating project, coalescing skills and knowledge from every content area into one research project that really matters, not just in school, but for the wider community. These projects empower students — they know they are making a difference in their local and global environments.
Here are some examples of the projects we have done at JGEMS:
• Frog Deformities – Since 2004, JGEMS has worked with USFWS to monitor the red-legged frog population in Neskowin Marsh, part of the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex. Each February JGEMS students meet USFWS staff at the marsh. They provide canoes and the students paddle a fixed route counting the number of egg clusters. This information has been extremely helpful for USFWS staff and, in some instances, has helped determine the next steps in their restoration efforts at the site. One year students were asked to search for the parasitic worms, Ribeiria ondatrae, that are the cause of frog deformities in North America. Students had to collect hundreds of aquatic snails, the intermediate host for the worms, and wait for them to emerge. They did indeed find worms, but not the species that has been linked to the deformities. USFWS was relieved to hear our results. They have not found any deformed frogs at the site.
• Forest Fire Ecology – JGEMS students have worked with the U.S. Forest Service since 2005 on forest fire ecology. There always seems to be a major forest fire for our students to study, starting with the B&B Complex Fire in 2003 up to the Beachie Creek Fire of 2020. Students first looked at burn severity in areas that were thinned versus those that were not. Working with the Oregon Zoo’s PikaWatch program, they studied pika survival and recolonization after the Dollar Creek Fire on Mt. Hood in 2011 and the Eagle Creek Fire of 2017. Students are currently studying the most effective restoration method to bring back biodiversity after a fire. The study sites are in the SE corner of Silver Falls State Park, the only area of the park burned in the Beachie Creek Fire of 2020. We also worked with the Oregon Zoo and USFWS on projects with the threatened Oregon silver-spot butterfly, the western pond turtle and the snowy plover.
• Sand Intrusion at Cannon Beach Tidepools – One group of students worked to determine the extent of sand encroachment in the Cannon Beach tide pool area for the Haystack Rock Awareness Project. They observed significant change in sand encroachment during the year. This information will prove invaluable to the Friends of Haystack Rock by providing baseline data for their long-term study.
• Stream Survey of Gnat Creek – This project was done at the request of the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife. Staff at the Gnat Creek Fish Hatchery noticed a rise in stream temperature over the past three years and they wanted to determine the cause. Students collected data on shade cover, large woody debris, water temperature and streambed pebble size. They identified the lack of adequate streamside buffer after logging as the probable cause of the temperature rise.
• Barbed Wire Fences and Wildlife Movement – The barbed wire fencing research project was done at the request of one of the JGEMS teachers who owns property northeast of Klamath Falls, Oregon. He was concerned that the barbed-wire fence around his property may be a dangerous obstacle to deer, elk and antelope as they travel through his property in search of food. The students used infrared camera traps to record the number of deer that crossed the fence line before and after the fence section was taken down.
• Phenology, Alpine Ecosystems and Climate Change – Working with the U. S. Forest Service, the Alpine Ecosystems Research Center in Chamonix, France, and the USA National Phenology Network, students are gathering baseline data on leaf-fall and bud-break on selected high altitude species in the Cascades. The Alpine Ecosystems Research Center has been conducting similar research in several European alpine countries for several years and they are eager to expand their data to include North America.
Mike Weddle was raised in Berkeley, California. He taught special education, computer science and conservation biology. In 2000 he helped establish the Jane Goodall Environmental Middle School, a public charter school focusing on environmental science. He retired in 2007 but continues to volunteer at his former school.