by editor | Feb 24, 2016 | Outdoor education and Outdoor School, Outstanding Programs in EE
Wolverines, Wonder and Wilderness
Why the Wolverine Matters to a Kid Who Has Never Seen a Raccoon
by Megan McGinty
IT IS APRIL AND I AM SITTING UNCOMFORTABLY on the cobbles of a gravel bar on the Skagit River in the North Cascades National Park with a group of local fifth graders, talking about the special rocks we just found. Ranger Paula arrives and greets us, asking the kids about their day and if they’ve seen any wildlife on their hike this afternoon. Excited, they all talk at once, clamoring to describe the chipmunk that ran across the trail and the robin they tried to take pictures of as it flew into the canopy. Paula begins to talk about the wildlife research being conducted in the park by scientists and asks the children “What animal would you most like to see while you are here?”
“Wolf!”
“Rabbit.”
“Mountain goat.”
“Raccoon.”
“Wolverine.”
At this last, my answer, the kids all turn and stare at me quizzically. Paula laughs and explains to the kids what a wolverine is and that they require a large amount of wilderness for their habitat. “How do you know they exist?” one asks. “Good question.” replies Paula.
For many of the kids, these two nights in a paved campground, using a bathroom with flush toilets and running water, eating out of a group kitchen with a gas stove and a refrigerator (albeit at picnic tables under a roof with only two walls), will be the most rugged outdoor recreation experience they ever have. For nearly all of them, the most pressing environmental issues they will come to terms with will be economic, as the area’s historically resource extraction-based industries dwindle. There is less land, less water, fewer trees and not enough fish available for these kids to follow in the footsteps of their parents and grandparents. Some of the students are already coping with the effects of illnesses caused by exposure to pesticides, industrial pollutants, lead in their drinking water and a myriad of other difficulties resulting from low-income residency. Given the realities of daily existence for some of these students, the fact that they are living within two hourís drive of one of largest areas of wildernesses within the contiguous United States is of little importance to them. Or is it?
Wilderness has long held a role in Judeo-Christian culture; its effects are still felt each year as millions of devout practitioners observe Lent. A significant portion of modern American culture still grapples with the issues raised by wilderness, from literary classics such as”The Call of the Wild” to the hit TV show “Survivor”. Many aborigine cultures used wildlands as the foundational setting for rites of passage and seeking insight. As we began to define ourselves as human and civilized, we also needed to label that which we were distinguishing ourselves from. It seems that as soon as man began to exist, so did wilderness.
Environmental education first came about as a movement when conservationists and educators recognized the effects of an increasing disconnect between society and the natural world. The need to rekindle that connection inspired efforts to get kids out into the woods, to take them out into the wild, because that’s where “real” nature was. It was assumed that a big part of the reason for the growing alienation from nature was due to the fact that there was no nature worthy of inspiring a connection in the cities and suburbs we live in. As school budgets tightened, the likelihood of such field trips and opportunities became scarce. At the same time, many thinkers began exploring the connections made to the natural world during childhood and realized that for many kids, it happened in the more common places such as vacant lots or backyards, places that they were allowed to have daily contact with. Educators began to wonder if the connections being made had less to do with the “wow” factor than with intimacy and immediate relevance.
Recent trends in environmental education have rendered the phrase ìplace-based-educationî a hot term, and rightly so. More curricula are available that allow the local schoolyard or drainage ditch to be a laboratory for ecological study. Innovative teachers have devised lessons that allow even the most urban settings to serve as the source for environmental theory. Students living in heavily-impacted areas are now more likely to be exposed the concepts behind environmental justice than to a canned curriculum about the Brazilian rainforest. By bringing a concrete (literally) relevance to the students’ daily lives, environmental education is being brought closer into the fold as a valid academic discipline.
The problem is this: wonder thrives on apparent irrelevance. I think of my friend Diego, born in the Dominican Republic and raised in the South Bronx. When he was fifteen, he went to a wilderness program in the Appalachians for students from the South Bronx High School who spoke English as a second language.
Incredibly out of place in an alien land and culture, he fell in love with climbing and returned to the program as an intern and later as a staff member. He now spends his free time in alpine wildernesses and climbs in some of the most remote parts of North America.
In this more recent vein of locally-focused programs, many kids are not introduced to the large chunks of land and water that are todayís wildernesses. This is often done with the assumption that this is best for them. Every educator is charged with the task of assigning importance to some lessons over others. The best educators begin with assessing what their students already know and where they are coming from.
There are many students with a wide range of experiences, so a sort of middle ground is aimed for, that is, the lessons are designed for the greatest commonalities among the students and the experiences they are most likely to already have. To be sure, Diego is an anomaly, but he is also an example of a student that flourished by getting a chance to see the wide world beyond his backyard.
It can easily be argued that a wilderness area isn’t needed to teach a group of fifth graders what watershed they live in or where their food comes from. A significant number of environmental education programs never reach a point where wilderness issues become pertinent and of those that do, there is rarely room in the curriculum for the issue. However, an educational program that is not prepared to address the question of wilderness is limited in its ability to handle the larger philosophical questions that environmental education tends to beg. (Should we preserve lands? Which ones? Why? What is ‘preservation’?, etc.) Even though the instructors often have to work with constraints such as lesson time, program length, or student background, they need a solid fundamental philosophy from which to base their lessons in order to effectively grapple with the more abstract aspects, the “big questions” of environmental education.
As we make lessons more real and connect them more intimately to students’ daily lives, we must not forget the importance of the great unknown. Appealing to the sense of wonder, to the promise of discovery, is of essential importance when convincing future generations to become active conservationists. When we introduce schoolchildren to the mysteries of their backyards, we cannot answer every question, nor should we try to. If they receive the message that all the answers have been found, that everything is under control and fully explained, there will be no reason for them to continue discovering and questioning.
By presenting the backyard as what it is, a test case, a fraction, a tightly bound series of parameters that can only serve as the roughest of sketches for the great ecological mysteries of the wildlands, we are giving them the most honest of lessons. No longer are they schoolchildren on an outing following a curriculum designed to lead them towards a predetermined outcome. They have been initiated as citizens of the planet who will play a role in shaping its future. How these kids will feel about their role in the environment can be decided by whether or not they know or don’t know that there are places on the planet where human impact is not yet a primary shaping factor.
Environmental issues cannot be conveniently contained with the boundaries of a city, state or even a country. Instead, they ignore the abstract divisions we have attempted to draw and reinforce the interdependence of ecosystems on both big and small levels. We need clean air, clean water and healthy soil, and preserving the areas that are still reservoirs of these things is as important as cleaning up the areas that are dangerously contaminated. Letting kids think that recycling and picking up litter will be sufficient to address the current and pending environmental issues is not far from lying to them.
The value of something beyond that which we know and see in our daily lives is of absolute importance when trying to convince people to work towards a goal that does not have immediate or tangible results. Kids need to be encouraged and to believe their efforts will have results, but we should not deceive them about the magnitude or pace of environmental progress. They will need inspiration for the work that lies ahead, be it in the form of a magnificent photo in National Geographic, a video of an amazing rainforest or tales of strange and fantastic creatures that live in remote wildlands.
When I was young, before I could read very well, one of my favorite books was a Dr. Seuss volume titled “McElligot’s Pool”. The story is simple: a farmer is teasing a boy named Marco who is fishing in McElligot’s Pool, a small pool in the middle of a cow pasture that people throw junk into. He thinks Marco will catch nothing but an old shoe. Marco concedes that the farmer may be right, but wonders if the pool could be connected to an underground river that flows to the sea. He imagines the progression of the secret river that connects the puddle to the great sea and the increasingly more bizzare creatures that live there. As a kid, I was absolutely captivated by the idea that the mundane things in my backyard could be connected to bigger, more exotic things that lay far beyond. Suddenly, pretending to be exploring the Amazon while catching and identifying spiders in the vacant lot next to my friend’s house did not seem quite so farfetched. In fact, it made the spider-hunting seem less like playing and more like training for someday exploring the great unknowns that still remain in the wildlands.
Megan McGinty lives in Bellingham, WA and is an Environmental Educator with North Cascades Institute. Photo by Benjamin Drummond.
by editor | Jan 20, 2016 | Conservation & Sustainability, Environmental Literacy, Outstanding Programs in EE
By being on the land and walking in the shoes of their host families, students begin to understand more deeply how and why Oregonians manage the land the way they do.
By Maureen Hosty
With contributions from Gary Delaney, Deb Schreiber, John Williams, Jed Smith and Shana Withee
regon is a state of great socioeconomic and geographic diversity. While this diversity brings strength, it also challenges Oregonians to meet the needs of all communities. This divide is mostly deeply felt around natural resource management issues. Oregon cities are now so culturally isolated from the country that clashes between urban and rural Oregon occur frequently when it comes to grazing, logging, wilderness and wildlife. That was the world Portland urban youth walked into when they took a stand in defense of wolves in 2005 at a public Fish and Wildlife hearing. Ranchers howled in protest. Yet, just as it seemed Oregon’s urban-rural divide had grown into an unbridgeable chasm this conflict ended when 4-H stepped in. 4-H staff from urban and rural Oregon along with a handful of ranchers from rural Grant County did the unexpected. They invited kids from urban Portland middle school to live and work along side them and see a rancher or farmers side of life.
Today the 4-H Urban-Rural Exchange involves youth as a catalyst for change for a sustainable Oregon future by providing a venue for rural and urban youth and families to share their stories, their lifestyles, their beliefs and their practices for managing the land for the next generation. Through this program, urban youth and their adult chaperons travel to rural Eastern Oregon to live and work alongside 4-H ranch and farm host families for 6 days. Likewise, rural youth travel to Portland with adult chaperons to live and work alongside their 4-H urban host family.
The program provides youth who are too often exposed to viewpoints on one side of an issue, a first hand experience on the land. It is this experience of being on the land and walking in the shoes of their host family that youth can begin to understand more deeply how and why Oregonians manage the land the way they do.
Through the process of developing this program 4-H Faculty quickly learned that a key to helping youth understand the the natural resource issues as well as the sustainability and resiliency of their host community, youth first need some knowledge about the dynamics of the influential social, environmental, and economic systems that underlie them. Thus, while the program began as a response to the issue of the reintroduction of wolves in Oregon, in the end the program is designed to help youth understand the broader social, cultural and economic issues within rural and urban Oregon and the interdependence between both sides of the state.
During their stay with their host family youth participate in daily chores in caring for the land with their host family. More importantly though, youth are involved in all aspects of community life of their host family. The attend school for a day, participate in community events, shop at the local store, attend a local sports game, meet local neighbors and sometimes attend church to name a few of the activities.
Program Design
Participant Selection Process
Approximately 40-50 youth are selected to participate in this exchange each year. Youth selected to participate in this program must submit a 4-H program application and get approval from their school administrator and principal. Teachers and 4-H staff screen youth applications. Youth are selected for their commitment and openness to learn and their potential for serving as an ambassador for their community. Participating youth must also commit to giving a presentation back home about what they learned during their 6-day exchange. Once they are selected youth are paired with another student of the same gender and then matched with a host family. All youth are expected to write a letter of introduction to their host family.
Likewise, 8-10 adult chaperons are also selected to participate in this program. All adult chaperons must complete the OSU Extension 4-H Leader screening process and undergo a criminal background clearance. Chaperons are recruited and selected from teachers, parents and community partners.
Host families for this program are recruited from current 4-H and OSU Extension families. All adults in the host family must complete a background information application and participate in a host family site visit by the 4-H Extension faculty. Host families are selected for their ability to provide a meaningful experience for their visiting youth or adult chaperons.
Pre-Education
Prior to loading in the vans and heading across the mountains to their host family, all youth and adult participants in the program must first complete a series of 4-H educational programs designed to prepare them for their experience. A 30-minute introductory program is provided at the beginning for the school year to introduce all potential students to the program and explain the application process. A series of 2-3 follow up educational sessions are held over the next several months. These educational sessions focus on the social, cultural and environmental issues of their host communities; cross-cultural communication and understanding; and sustainable urban and rural agriculture.
A mandatory one-hour orientation is held for all participating chaperons, youth and their parents. Participating chaperons also participate in additional training related to the roles and responsibilities of being a chaperon.
During the Exchange
Four six-day exchanges from urban to rural Oregon take place the same week in April. Urban 4H youth travel to multiple communities in Harney County, Grant County, Wallowa County and Klamath County. A few weeks later, youth from rural Oregon travel to urban Portland for a 5-day exchange.
Traveling to their host community takes several hours and generally includes brief stops at historical and/or natural landmarks within the state. A lunch stop is held at a local 4-H Extension office along the route.
Once youth and their chaperons arrive at their host county 4-H office, the program begins with a potluck dinner with all the host families and visiting youth and chaperons. The potluck is designed to give youth and chaperons the opportunity to meet their host families, participate in icebreaker activities, and learn about the guidelines and expectations for the week.
During their stay with their rural host family Portland youth work alongside ranchers and farmers from rural eastern Oregon to learn the joys and challenges that comes with real rural life. Some activities include: caring and feeding livestock, vaccinating animals, branding cattle, chopping wood, and cleaning barns. Urban youth learn that ranching and farming is a 24-hour around the clock profession and caring for their livestock involves even checking on their livestock at 2 am. Urban youth also attend a school for the day in their rural community host school. In some cases urban youth who are use to attending school with 500+ students in three grades are surprised to find some rural schools with less than 100 students in 12 grades.
Likewise, rural middle school youth visit Portland to learn about the joys and challenges of urban life. Rural youth live and work alongside urban families and explore issues relevant to Portland such as transportation, greenspaces preservation, urban agriculture and water management. Rural youth learn how to use public transportation, visit a farmers market and/or community gardens, tour a waste treatment plant , or visit a recycling center. They also attend school for a day. Unlike back home in their community, rural youth visiting urban Portland walk to school or ride their bike. In some cases rural youth learn that urban students get to school by public transportation.
On the sixth and final day of the exchange, visiting youth and chaperons and their host families return to the local 4-H Extension office to participate in a debriefing activity and to say final goodbyes.
Post Program
Once youth return from their experience living with a host family across the urban-rural divide, the program does not stop. Participating youth are divided into teams of 3-4 youth. Each team is expected to prepare and deliver a 15-20 minute presentation to the rest of their school about what they learned during the exchange.
More important, however, many youth continue their education beyond the 4-H program. Over 1/3 of the youth who have particpated in this program reported that they went back to visit their host family in the summer and took their own family with them. Several families in one Portland community also began a beef cooperative with their 4-H host ranch family.
Program Impacts
Outcome evaluations indicated significant changes in attitude, knowledge and understanding of socioeconomic and environmental issues from both sides of the divide. A four year evaluation found changes in knowledge and attitudes among both urban and rural participants. 119 urban participants and 43 rural host family members participated in the study.
Urban participants reported significant changes in attitudes in:
1) Knowing about the lifestyles, beliefs and ways of living of rural Oregonians; 2) Understanding the beliefs and practices for managing the land by rural Oregonians; 3) Understanding how the actions of urban Oregonians impact rural Oregon natural resource management; 4) Their awareness of rural Oregon stereotypes; 5) Knowing the commonalities urban and rural Oregonians have in managing their land; 6) Their belief that ranchers have a respect and understanding of how to best manage their land.
Rural participants reported significant changes as well in:
1) Knowing about the lifestyles, beliefs and ways of urban youth; 2) Their belief that most urban Oregonians are open to hearing all sides of natural resource issues; 3) Their awareness of urban Oregon stereotypes; 4) Their belief that urban Oregonians have a respect and understanding of how to best manage urban natural resources.
Today, over 600 youth and family members have participated in this program since it began in 2006. Many of these 600 Oregonians will likely spend the rest of their lives living and working in their same respective part of the state. They might never step foot on the other side of divide. But from this day forward, they will have a different idea about the kind of people they share the state with and how they are managing their natural resources. And when that time comes when another issue around the managementt of our natural resources divides this state, these 4H youth, 4-H leaders and 4-H host families will have someone they know and trust that they can reach out to and get their input and insights on the issue.
To learn more about this program, the program sponsors and partners, or how to become involved, please contact us:
Maureen Hosty, 4-H Youth Development, Metro 4-H
Phone: 971-361-9628
E-mail: Maureen.hosty@oregonstate.edu
Website: www.4hwildlifestewards.org
Follow-up
Since the program began in 2006, there have been a total of 34 Exchanges between urban and rural Oregon. Three hundred and eight urban youth youth and 74 urban adult chaperons have traveled across Oregon to live and work alongside 130 rural families (a total of 434 Rural Oregonians). The program has since expanded from 4 counties to 8 counties: Multnomah, Grant, Klamath, Wallawa, Harney, Wheeler, Gilliam and Morrow. 4-H Faculty and staff are busy preparing for the 2016 Exchanges which will take place March 31-April 5th. Participants in the exchange will be recruited from 4-H Youth and Adults from 4-H Clubs and 4-H Partner Schools. For more information about this program please contact: Maureen Hosty OSU Extension Faculty Portland Metro Area 4-H 3880 SE 8th Ave #170 Portland, OR 97202 PH 971-361-9628 | cell 503-360-6060 | fax -971-361-9628 maureen.hosty@oregonstate.edu
All Photos: Lynn Ketchum
by editor | Jan 18, 2016 | Outstanding Programs in EE
A While in the Wild: Educating for Environmental Empathy
Experiences in wild nature, the leadership of a significant adult, and the educational support of the classroom offer powerful tools in shaping students toward lifelong leadership in environmental stewardship.
by Fay Mascher M.Ed., Cayley School
Jonas Cox Ph.D., Gonzaga University
Charles Salina Ph.D., Gonzaga University
On a visit to the coulee, a startled owl exploded off of a nest that we thought was empty. On the bus ride back to school, one boy reached for my hand, “Feel my heart,” he said. “It’s still going really fast.” –from the Cayley School action research project
ince the 1980’s, researchers in environmental education have explored this basic question: Why do some people care about the natural environment enough to protect it, while others do not? Current environmental education, taught as a unit of instruction within the science curriculum, tends to assume that imparting information about the environment will inspire students to care for it. But a generation of young people educated in this way has not yielded a generation of adults committed to caring for the natural world.
The people of Cayley School, situated in a rural hamlet about one hour south Calgary, Alberta, struggled with a similar dynamic. In the spring of 2005, the teachers, parents, community members, and students of this small school (150 students in kindergarten through eighth grade) met with the Stewardship Centre of Canada to explore what their school could do to foster care of the natural environment.
The Youth Environmental Stewardship Program (YES) was born, sparking much activity at Cayley School. The school maintains ten photovoltaic units and a small wind turbine to provide three kilowatts of power to the grid. Students and staff participate in a thorough recycling program. An environment club meets weekly. Classroom instruction pursues cross-curricular inquiry into many environmental issues. Recognized in the media, and given multiple awards for environmental projects, Cayley School has laid strong ground work for meeting the goals of the YES project.
However, in a meeting of YES stakeholders in the fall of 2007, consensus emerged that the specific vision of the program—shaping students toward lifelong leadership in environmental stewardship—was not being realized. Students did not display a general ethic of stewardship, nor were they eager to fill leadership roles in the YES program .
Thorough environmental instruction combined with exciting school-wide environmental projects had failed to translate into genuine environmental stewardship. Why? There it was again, that thirty-year-old question: Why do some people care about the natural environment enough to protect it, and others do not?
Where does environmental stewardship come from?
Researchers in the field of environmental education have approached that question in a variety of ways. Tanner read the biographies of conservationists looking for patterns in their early experiences that might explain their lifelong care of the environment. In these biographies, and in a subsequent survey, he discovered that conservationists consistently report having spent a significant amount of time as children in wild or semi-wild places.
Subsequent studies had similar findings: time spent in wild or “domesticated” nature correlates significantly with subsequent environmentally responsible behavior. Wells and Lekies investigated the optimal age for these experiences and concluded that, “participation with ‘wild’ nature before age 11 is a particularly potent pathway toward shaping both environmental attitudes and behaviors in adulthood” .
Many of these studies discovered that when these nature experiences are shared with an important adult–a family member or a teacher—positive environmental behaviors are strengthened. During shared experiences in nature, a child becomes aware of the environment by attending to the bird, leaf, or rock that has captured the attention of the adult companion. Chawla calls this the power of joint attention. The child turns his or her attention to things pointed out by an adult, and then begins to do the same, pointing at things and calling out their names. An adult noticing nature helps a child take the first steps toward becoming environmentally aware.
Shared adult/child experiences in wild nature moves a child into a process by which stewardship behavior develops. The stages of that development can be compared to the evolution of a loving relationship between two people. In both cases there is a five step process: awareness, knowledge gathering, coming to appreciate, coming to love, and acting to protect.
Once the child has become aware of the natural environment, through the power of joint attention, she begins to gain knowledge about nature by interacting with it, by experimenting first-hand. The theory of ecological psychology describes how the natural world provides opportunities for interactive learning. For example, a low tree branch allows a child to climb; rough ground affords the opportunity to establish balance. Nature offers a rich environment for these interactions, and provides immediate and often powerful feedback to all of the senses. Free play in nature, then, begins a relationship between the child and the natural world.
First a child is exposed to nature, then, he spends times interacting with it. Now he is ready for the knowledge building activities he finds in environmental education curricula in the schools. Students learn facts about the local environment from books and teachers. The more this learning serves to directly explain, support, and deepen the students’ hands-on outdoor experiences, the more meaningful it is.
The more children learn about a place the more they appreciate it. Going forward, they maintain interest in it and show simple, environmentally responsible behavior when they are there. Lindemann and Matthies found that the more plants and animals children could identify in the field, the more appreciation they would show for all kinds of plants and animals. Increased knowledge of nature leads to increased appreciation of nature. Increased appreciation sparks more frequent visits to the natural world and increases the length of each visit.
Appreciation deepens to a feeling of love as the child begins to identify and empathize with the natural world. Once that attachment is formed, the child consistently exhibits environmentally responsible behavior in that place. Attachment to one special place will often generalize to changed behavior in other settings.
Unfortunately, most children today have little, if any, experience in wild nature, with or without a significant adult. In his fifteen years of interviewing families across the United States, Louv found:
With few exceptions, even in rural areas, parents say the same thing: Most children aren’t playing outside anymore, not in the woods or fields or canyons. A fifth-grader in San Diego described his world succinctly: ‘I like to play indoors better ’cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are’
As outdoor experience becomes less common, environmental education gains importance. It is here that children can be reconnected with “the restorative, challenging, primal qualities of nature” and guided through hands-on, personally meaningful activities, that construct an empathetic knowledge of the natural world.
Effective Environmental Education—three considerations
Experiences in wild nature shared with an important adult are vital components of successful environmental education. Further studies insist, however, that they are not the only considerations when designing experiences aimed at forming an ethic of stewardship.
Effective environmental education programs share several common features. They are experiential and personally meaningful . They are developmentally appropriate. They provide opportunity both for deeper understanding and for the application of new insights.
Experiential and personally meaningful
John Dewey, in 1891, articulated the importance of building connections between school and personal life:
From the standpoint of the child, the great waste in the school comes from his inability to utilize the experiences he gets outside the school in any complete and free way within the school itself; while, on the other hand, he is unable to apply in daily life what he is learning at school. That is the isolation of the school, its isolation from life
Duffin and Gostev and Weiss show that environmental education programs that succeed in increasing environmentally responsible behavior provide students with hands-on learning and abundant opportunities to make personal connections.
Developmentally appropriate
Research investigating children’s relationship with the natural world shows three clear stages of development. From age four to six a child connects with the immediate world through his empathy for living things, particularly animals. From age seven to eleven the child’s desire to explore becomes stronger–exploration activities become appropriate. It is not until the age of twelve that students typically can begin to deal with tragedies, so at this age social action can become a focus.
Environmental education that is developmentally insensitive can do more harm than good. Sobel especially cautions against introducing ecological problems to a child who has not developed the power of abstract thinking. Such premature calls to action will distance the child from the natural environment.
Developmentally appropriate curriculum, on the other hand, nurtures a strong connection to the natural environment in stages. First a child connects with her immediate environment, then to an expanding local landscape, and finally to the global environment. Formed in those experiences, she takes action when she is ready.
Opportunities for deeper understanding
Environmental education explores situations where the “correct” answer can be ambiguous. Students become equipped to respond to such complexity when, in the context of nature, they are coached through a process of assessment and judgment. Educators begin by teaching basic environmental knowledge, but the process does not stop there. Students learn to weigh the competing values that often make environmental decision-making difficult. Such experiences equip students to take action and allow them to assume increasing ownership of environmental problems. Students feel empowered and confident as they apply knowledge to action. Students who have been coached in this way—prepared to think critically when faced with complex problems–are more likely to exhibit complex, environmentally responsible behavior.
Developing environmental empathy at Cayley School
Armed with research and eager to realize Cayley School’s vision to foster environmental stewardship, we designed a five-month environmental experience for the kindergarten class. From October ‘07 to March ’08 fourteen five and six year olds,eight boys and six girls of mixed socio-economic circumstances and academic and social ability, participated in a place-based environmental education model aimed at building environmental empathy and responsibility.
Because research emphasizes the powerful outcomes of time spent in wild nature with an important adult, our program design involved frequent outdoor experiences led by the kindergarten teacher. There were two components to the outdoor experience. The class frequently visited and explored natural environments within walking distance of the school. We also designated a more distant, wilder location (fifteen minutes away by bus) as Our Special Place and visited it several times throughout the duration of the project.
Time in wild nature
Outdoor experiences in the surrounding environment happened daily. These were initially scheduled for the same time each day in order to create a habit of outdoor learning time. As outdoor time became entrenched in the day, access to the outdoors became more spontaneous and flexible.
Planned outdoor activities were drawn from resources such as Thomson and Arledge. (2002). Five Minute Field Trips: Teaching about Nature in Your Schoolyard; Cornell, J.B. (1979). Sharing Nature with Children; and Sobel, D. (2004). Place Based Education. Planning was informed by Wilson’s (1986) guidelines: begin with simple experiences, provide frequent positive outdoor experiences, and focus on experiencing versus teaching.
The schoolyard at Cayley School offered many rich opportunities. Off the gravel of the play structure, there is a terraced, bushy Memorial Garden, big poplar trees, long grass, and ready access to fields. A fifteen minute walk north of the school yard offers a hay field and slough. Activities in the schoolyard and at the slough were planned with “wildness in mind” in order to maximize the positive influence of wild nature mentioned in the literature. Over the course of the five month study, a new subdivision being built north of Cayley expanded toward the slough and blocked the walking path for two weeks. The new construction presented an unexpected opportunity for conversation and questions.
Five times over the course of the project the class visited Our Special Place, an intact buffalo jump surrounded by native grassland called “Women’s Coulee.” We timed our visits so that students could experience the coulee across the seasons–late fall, winter and spring. Our activities at the coulee mirrored our daily outdoor activities within Cayley; however the trips to the coulee were far richer and more spontaneous due to its diversity and wildness. On one trip the students were able to study large, perfectly formed snowflakes that covered the ground. On another the group startled a female great horned owl off of a nest that we had assumed to be empty. On a return trip, with binoculars to study the owl, the students found prairie crocuses blooming.
An important adult
Remembering the role of a significant adult in shaping environmental responsibility, we carefully considered the teacher’s contribution to the children’s experience. The teacher enthusiastically supported the children’s budding sensitivity for wild places, demonstrating personal interest and enjoyment, and modeling care and respect for the natural environment. In order to broaden the network of important adults, parents and other community members were invited to join as assistants and fellow nature-learners.
Supporting nature experiences in the classroom
We made changes within the classroom to support our outdoor experiences. Curricular instruction integrated environmental themes. The space and routines within the classroom were also re-designed. Following their explorations, students came into the classroom to record their observations and research their questions. Reference books were readily available. Art materials were on hand to encourage students to represent their nature discoveries with their own hands and in various media. Nature journaling became a regular part of the experience as it is “hands-on learning at its best”.
The room decorations reflected a focus on our natural place, as well as the human penchant for displaying nature in interior spaces. Natural materials were used as much as possible. Students were given an opportunity to share nature treasures on a well-lit discovery table at their viewing height.
Outcomes
Quantitative and qualitative data, gathered in pre-tests and post-tests, show that the kindergarten children at Cayley School built greater knowledge, developed keener interest, and formed more positive attitudes toward the natural environment as a result of our five-month trial.
Asked to identify the photographs of 16 local native animals in a pre-test and post-test, the group increased their correct answers by 32 percent. An increase in animal knowledge is a very powerful first step toward environmental stewardship. Lindemann and Matthies found that the more plants and animals children could identify in the field, the more appreciation they would show for all kinds of plants and animals.
An attitude questionnaire administered as a pre-test and post-test, measured the students’ empathy and emotional affinity with the natural world. Questions were designed to explore their concern for animals and plants, their participation in animal make-believe, evidence of love of nature, and whether they have feelings of freedom, of safety, and of oneness while in nature. A response of “no” to a question such as: Is it a good idea to pick wildflowers? was marked “positive” because it showed a protective attitude toward the natural environment. Positive student responses on the attitude questionnaire increased 23% on the post-test.
When students were invited to explain why and why not on their answers to the post-test attitude survey, an interesting change emerged. Many students took longer to answer the questions than they had on the pre-test, now having to sort out an issue that was no longer obvious to them. For example, on the pre-test many students quickly and confidently stated that the spider should not be put outside, but should be killed. On the post-test students talked about the fact that spiders might bite or make a mess with their webs, explained methods for picking the spider up, and considered carefully before giving their response. Some students felt the need to explain behaviors that they now felt were inconsistent with what we had been learning. When asked if it was a good idea to pick wild flowers, some explained that they did pick wild flowers, but only in places where there were lots of flowers.
Prior to and again following the trial, students drew a map showing special places that they could go to around the school. Pre-test maps showed a fairly equal representation of natural and man-made features. On the post-test, however, 83% of the features drawn on the post-test maps were natural. There were no animal drawings in the pre-test maps, but animal drawings were included in almost all of the post-test maps. The scope of the maps also expanded. Pre-test maps were almost all restricted to the boundaries of the school yard. The post-test maps showed a much wider geographic scope, indicating a broadening view of the world around the school and an expanding awareness that other creatures live in the places close to us.
Implications
The children of Cayley School kindergarten will perhaps never forget the excitement of seeing a startled owl explode off of a nest that we thought was empty. One boy said to his teacher on the bus ride back to school, “Feel my heart. It’s still going really fast.” The children who participated in the project developed a genuine, excited sense of connection to the natural world. They became eager to learn more. They developed more complex environmental thinking and showed a willingness to consider their decisions in relation to nature much more carefully.
Our educational trial brought the people of Cayley School closer to the vision they formed back in the spring 2005 when the Youth Environmental Stewardship Program (YES) was born. Experiences in wild nature, the leadership of a significant adult, and the educational support of the classroom offer powerful tools in shaping students toward lifelong leadership in environmental stewardship.
****
Fay Mascher began her teaching career with a variety of special education teaching positions in B.C. and Alberta. In 1992 she settled in High River and soon thereafter began her work at Cayley School where her focus has been primary education. In addition to her keen interest in environmental education, Fay was instrumental in the founding of the Cayley School strings program which now delivers violin instruction to students from Kindergarten to Grade 5.
Jonas Cox teaches Learning Theory to undergraduate teacher candidates and currently serves as the Chair of Teacher Education at Gonzaga University. He has been active in the Environmental Education field for some time working with the Pacific Education Institute and recently serving as the Treasurer of EEAW. He can be reached at coxj@gonzaga.edu.
Chuck Salina is on the Gonzaga University School of Education faculty and is currently serving as the Turn Around Principal for the high school in Sunnyside Washington. His interest in social justice issues and high quality educational experience for youth has drawn him into environmental education. Chuck can be reached salina@gonzaga.edu.
by editor | Apr 21, 2015 | Outstanding Programs in EE
Brightwater: An Opportunity for Connection
The treatment facility employs state-of-the-art technology for a cleaner effluent and odorless operation.
by Cynthia Thomashow
he Metro bus opens its doors, releasing 40 fourth-graders who have ridden an hour from South Seattle to the Brightwater Water Treatment Center in Woodinville, Washington. “We’re in the wilderness!” squeals one of the young boys. To his credit, the landscape is very different from his urban schoolyard. But, just 20 years ago Brightwater was an industrial site, housing an old soup factory and a scrap-metal heap. Now it is home to a state-of- the-art water treatment center, flourishing wetlands, a LEED Platinum environmental education center, and 40+ acres of woods and fields crisscrossed by trails and abundant wildlife.
In 2011, IslandWood, an environmental education center on Bainbridge Island, Washington, won the contract to provide educational programming at Brightwater in partnership with Seattle Public Utilities to a mostly urban population. The Center is a laboratory and gathering place filled with interpretive displays that creatively connect water quality, engineered waste treatment processes, and the health of the Puget Sound to everyday life choices. IslandWood educators use this site to deliver field-study approaches that enhance science curriculum in the King County schools. Woven into every lesson is relevance of the field-based learning to the home environment of the urban students.
Over 4,000 students come through the doors of Brightwater each year to study Freshwater Ecosystems, Land Forms and Humans in the Water Cycle with IslandWood educators. Sparked by the question, “Which pond at Brightwater has more types of water bugs, Storm Pond (an untreated storm water runoff catchment) or Otter Pond (a pond fed by a stream originating in the watershed above the treatment plant)?” Students may spend half the day mucking through wetlands, climbing hilly fields, and dipping their nets into containment ponds to collect macro-invertebrates. Student make observations and predictions about freshwater ecosystems in the field, collect specimens, tabulate data using microscopes in the lab and discuss their results together.
Another key question, “What happens when we ‘borrow’ water from the water cycle in our homes, schools and businesses?” begins the study of how humans participate in the water cycle every time they turn on their tap, run the dishwasher or go to the bathroom. During the Humans and the Water Cycle program, students experience the treatment process first-hand, discuss water issues in an interactive exhibit hall, and participate in a hands-on lab focusing on three different water-related STEM careers.
An ongoing professional development challenge for staff is to connect the field experiences to the actual neighborhoods where students live. The goal of IslandWood’s Brightwater Team is to ‘urbanize’ their signature field-based approach of getting kids outdoors to the urban settings where students live. Once a month, staff delve into the assumptions that define our goals around environmental education, considering equity issues, environmental justice and cultural competency as it relates to educational approaches. Every time a new group of students arrives at Brightwater, a conceptual shift moves the educators closer to relevant and meaningful engagement with the young urban leaders of tomorrow’s world.
An installation by artist Jane Tsong illustrates the treatment process to visitors through poetry, and “blesses” the water before it is released.
(Photo credit: Juan Hernandez.)
by editor | Apr 19, 2011 | Conservation & Sustainability, Features on Outstanding Programs, Outstanding Programs in EE
by Gregory A. Smith
Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon
As news stories about global climate change, the peaking of oil production, or the threat of major water shortages appear more frequently in the mainstream press, it is not surprising that concerns about the long-term sustainability of institutions associated with industrial civilization have become common. Although national and global organizations have been involved with this issue since the 1970s, only in the past decade has the general public begun to attend to the degree to which our economy and way of life are vulnerable to the impact of human behavior on the natural systems that support our species. The term, sustainability, has become part of our daily language, and even though it is now employed to justify the efforts of transnational corporations as well as environmental organizations, its use points to a growing awareness that humanity can no longer ignore the environmental consequences of our activities and decisions. (more…)
by editor | Dec 9, 2010 | Climate Change & Energy, Conservation & Sustainability, Outstanding Programs in EE
The Cool School Challenge engages schools from all across the country in strategies to reduce CO2 emissions
by Katie Fleming, Rhonda Hunter & Kimberly Cline
Extreme weather events, rising sea levels, melting glaciers – oh my! While climate change is an overwhelming issue, there is certainly hope, especially in the collective power of individual actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That’s the underlying principle of the Cool School Challenge, an innovative climate education program that motivates students, teachers and school districts to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions school-wide. At the heart of the program is the philosophy that big changes start with small steps – and taken together, simple individual actions create a world of difference. Cumulatively, we CAN reduce our carbon footprint and it’s already happening! (more…)
