by editor | Sep 12, 2025 | Environmental Literacy, Inquiry, Language Arts, Learning Theory, Teaching Science
The wild turkeys on my street don’t wear booties in the winter and the mouse in my house doesn’t wear bonnets from a closet! Should environmental education start with realism in the early years?
by Suzanne Major Ph.D.
Anthropology of Early Childhood Education
Books and movies have made animals, insects and plants so charming and sympathetic, and at times so frightfully magnificent and impressive. Can young children do without these entertaining animations and anthropomorphism, that is, making animals, insects and plants look and behave like humans? Do we dress them up, make them talk and have them drink tea from porcelain cups because we don’t know anything about them? Or do we think that young children can’t appreciate them for what they are? Young children across the world easily demonstrate that they are capable of perceiving, observing and remembering the descriptive elements belonging to an animal, a plant or insect. They can collect information and draw knowledge from it. My friend Omar in Cairo, three years old, knows not to treat the wild dogs as pets if only, because they are infested with fleas. My neighbour Maddy learned at two-years-old not to bother the bees in the hive hanging from the apple tree. Jenny, in Moncton New Brunswick, four years old, can identify the leaves of poison ivy in the forest and knows to wear long pants to protect her legs when she goes for walks with her family. Children learn very early on what is dangerous or not, comestible or not, pleasant or disagreeable. They are also capable of attaching symbolic value to things. Children everywhere offer flowers to their mothers and grandmothers to express their feelings or to create a nice event! As you know, they learn using observation, imitation, repetition or as Piaget wrote “perception, assimilation and accommodation”. They also identify with the knowledge of others or the information offered by nature. They encode it just because others use it, or they happened to observe it. They sometimes need information quickly, so they identify with the information others have, to fill the gap until they can adapt or replace it with more personal information. Through a very individualistic process of thought creation they retain or ignore elements of information and knowledge. They set the ones they favour in memory and replay others in thought, all sorts of ways assessing what works or not.
Finding animals, insects, plants or things cute, vulnerable or charming stems from the capability of empathy which is more difficult to use for what is ugly, threatening or disgusting. This notion of finding things cute is a cultural one that is cultivated and exploited by stories, books, animations and movies. Empathy is used to ensure survival among our own and can be transferred to animals, insects and plants. But it also allows sentiments to emerge that can be directed, intentions that can be instructed and behaviours that can be modelled. It is often used because of marketing interests but it can also serve pedagogically to create empathy. “Charlotte, the spider” is a good example!
The question here is do we need to create stories to nurture environmental education with children? Are we trying to sell them nature? Do we need to manipulate them towards environmental education or can we let them acquire a more significant first-hand experience? Should we not have a more functional approach about how everything has a place and time and is part of a balance of all and everything in the universe? Should we not let nature imprint itself on children, so they can sense by themselves their place on earth? Is that not fascinating enough? Let’s take the booties and the bonnets off the turkeys and the mice on these pages to see where this can go! Pink and white mice are mammals of the order of Rodentia and the genus MUS.[1] Wikipedia tells us that they are climbers, jumpers and swimmers and have lots of energy. They use their tail for tripoding so they can observe, listen and feel their environment. They can sense surface and air movements with their whiskers and use pheromones for communication. It is difficult for them to survive away from human settlements and in our houses, they actually become domesticated! They eat plant matter or anything else they can get their paws on. They will even eat their own feces for nutrients produced by intestinal bacteria. They are great at reproducing. They have a 19 to 21 days gestation, have 3 to 14 pups and 5 to 10 litters a year and females are sexually mature at 6 weeks. Do the math! We like them outside in the fields and not in our houses. Where I live, coyotes can hear and smell them and eagerly feast on them. Small falcons and owls can see them easily and pick them up in a flash. Last summer was very warm and wet. The vegetation exploded as well as the mice population. As I walked in my garden, they would jump up right and left to move away from me.
What can we infer from this information for environmental education? Young children spontaneously sit on their legs, hold up their bent hands and wiggle their noses to imitate mice. By observing mice and comparing their bodies with them, young children can engage in an array of locomotive and motor activities. Experimenting with sensing surfaces and air movements with their skin and their hair they can discover how this gives them information and knowledge. They can explore and sense space with the whole body like the security of a small shelter and the unsettling feeling of wide-open spaces. Discovering smells and odours for two and three-year- olds can be a lot of fun and for older children, linking those to chemical reactions can awake them to science. Seeking the mice out in the fields can be very interesting as they make little tunnels that go everywhere under the snow and through the dried grass. Reflecting with young children over three years old on the mice population in relation to the weather and the consequences this brings is interesting because the phenomenon attracts coyotes near houses which creates a real threat to house pets and small farm animals.
Let’s consider wild turkeys or Meleagris Gallopavo. Wikipedia informs us that the females are called hens and the males are known as toms. The males have huge tails they fan out to attract the females and impress the other males. They have up to 6,000 feathers and they can fly for 400 metres. To protect themselves from storms, they can roost up to 16 metres above ground in tall conifers. They gobble and emit a low-pitched drumming sound. If cornered, they can be aggressive towards humans. They are omnivores but prefer nuts, seeds and berries. They will eat amphibians, snakes and reptiles. Their babies are called poults. The hens lay 10 to 14 eggs and incubate for 28 days and the little ones are ready to go 12 to 24 hours after hatching. They can fall prey to coyotes, grey wolfs, lynxes and foxes.
The adults are around four feet tall and the big males can weigh some 37 pounds. I observe them regularly around my house. Hens flock together with the young ones, 12 or 14 together as they walk around the fields and woods. When they cross the road, one leads on and at least one or two stay behind to gather everyone. They are very attentive, looking right and left and right again. One might even stand guard in the middle of the street to make sure everyone has crossed. I am told they made a comeback in recent years as they had disappeared because of over hunting. At night in the summer, when there is a storm, we can hear them gobble after each clap of thunder.
What can we infer from this information for environmental education? It’s a magnificent bird when it struts around displaying its beautiful black tail, but I reckon a young child would be impressed even afraid if it came face to face with a tom or a hen on the street or in the back yard. It certainly offers the opportunity to acquire new vocabulary with the wattle or snood hanging from its beak, the caruncles pending from its neck, its hairless head crown and beard or beards on a single bird, the spurs on the back of its legs and the three long toes on its feet. Two and three- year-olds would delight in knowing by heart the body parts of the wild turkey and comparing it with the ones of a chicken. Young children would also be impressed to measure themselves against the life-size drawing of a male turkey. Three and four-year-olds could explore what low-pitch drumming sounds are and could discuss why the turkeys gobble after the clap of thunder and even do a little research. As an educator, I would not miss the chance to make a parallel between the turkeys looking right and left and right again before crossing the street and children attempting to do the same but unable to fly away from danger! Finally, with older children it would be interesting to place the mice, the turkeys and the coyotes in their environment and talk about the relation between them.
Nature provides real and fascinating animations all by herself and children can appreciate the reality of animals, insects and plants. All sorts of elements can create the desire for observation and exploration. Exploration calls on focus which brings attention to details which creates in turn the need for manipulation. Manipulation and/or representation will lead to curiosity for functions which is knowledge. Knowledge for young children establishes the feeling of competence. Competence cultivates initiatives and permits the experience of trials and successes. In turn, the need and the pleasure for demonstration can take place, then patience to practice, to persist and develop skills becomes a reality. Later, mastering will open the cognitive door to metaknowledge.
Observation, exploration, focus, manipulation, representation, curiosity, knowledge, competence, initiative, demonstration, patience, mastering, metaknowledge, is a pedagogical sequence that young children can start experiencing when they are just a few months old.
Suzanne Major is an anthropologist and early childhood educator. She received her Ph. D. in 2015, with mention of excellence, in Anthropology of Early Childhood Education from the University of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She also has a master’s degree in Child Studies which was obtained in 2004 at Concordia University, in Montreal, Canada. She has worked 12 years as Director for the Early Childhood Studies Program of the University of Montreal’s Faculty of Permanent Education.
by editor | Sep 2, 2025 | Environmental Literacy, Experiential Learning, Learning Theory, Questioning strategies, Teaching Science
Or, can we slow down enough to use inquiry to build effective conceptual learnings?
Education is not a Race to the Top. I have to state that up front. In a Race to the Top are we allowed the time it takes to contemplate what we are learning? Time to dig into the record to find the information which satisfies our needs to know? Time to make the conceptual connections between what we are currently learning, and what we have learned before? Time to become involved and invested in our educations? Time to become empowered as persons?
I do not believe that education is a race at all. Rather, it is a journey, a journey which wanders through who we are, who we were, and where we might go; all the while, developing the capacity to engage in autonomous learning, discovering how our brain and body work together to learn, becoming practiced in learning how to work with others to discover how we, our world, and our Universe work. Not a random journey, but one generated by interest and the need to discover and comprehend facts. Mental sprinting does not generate that world.
How can a wandering journey lead to empowered students?
Let me describe a simple activity to illustrate this. Simple, but demanding quality time; as with most of experience, things which are simple in concept are more often complex in execution. For a long time, my teaching has developed around the idea that our brain is organized to learn, and does so when we allow it. Allowing it means planting a thought in the student’s mind (read brain), then structuring the learning environment so the student, in pursuing this thought, raises a question and engages your curriculum in answering it. Means knowing that students’ brains will be effective in directing their learning.
As a matter of fact, everything students learn is the product of human brains that were thinking. Human (and all mammalian) brains are autonomous learners; especially when they need to know. Questions and thoughts, when they are pursued, generate needs to know. Together, these simple things and processes make brains learn. They learn how to learn. As the term goes along, students assume more and more of the load. The difficult part for us is learning to accept that this is true. Especially when our publishers present such compelling books, activities, and supplements in which students’ brains are directed to find particular answers to particular questions within them.
Here is my example of planting a question or thought in a student’s mind, then using it to deliver curriculum. In this example, students engage an activity in which they observe paramecium under the microscope. When they first observe them, they see majestic, sailing cells, moving through the medium like dancers in a ballroom; ships in a sea, traveling slowly, but always with some inherent purpose. While they travel, food vacuoles move slowly, contractile vacuole pulses, cilia beat, as this living ship navigates its waters. Most of the lab activities written to observe and know paramecia quash this exciting perception of these fascinating creatures. (Likewise for most other phenomena they address.)
During an activity where students rotate through a set of learning stations to introduce themselves to cells, they are asked to observe a sample from a bowl of cloudy water for paramecium. At the paramecium station, I ask my students to just look at them, and to know that they’re very old as a species. The next day, as we review their observations at the stations they visited, when they get to paramecium, I ask, “Did you notice anything interesting at the paramecium station?” Students relate some specifics they observed, with “dots” inside, moving things, as the most frequent observation of interest. I ask, “Do you think you can find out what they are doing?” They want to try, so we begin.
Each group chooses their most interesting observation to follow up on with an inquiry they design themselves. When they choose a thing like the moving “dots,” and ask about them, I suggest I might know a trick to make them easier to observe. Eventually, they will ask about the trick and I’ll mention that some scientists boil yeast in congo red, which changes color depending on the pH. They haven’t studied digestion yet, but will, so I add that food coming in has a low pH compared with digested food, and we’ll study that later in the year. They’re happy with that and ask if I have any congo red and yeast.
Another group decided to study the cilia that cover paramecia and appear to help them move. They were having trouble making their observations because the paramecia moved too fast. I said that some scientists used a solution that slowed the cells down, and they asked if I knew how to get some. I said that there might be some in the prep room, and that I’d look. My bottle of Protoslo was waiting there, and I gave it to them and showed them how to use it. Then off they went.
When the investigations have been completed, groups analyze and interpret their data, make inferences from the results, and report out to the class in a seminar. (When we started our investigation, I had informed the class that they should check what other groups were finding out because they were responsible for knowing all about paramecia. I reminded them of this when we started the seminar.) These are always lively, and groups always want to go into the lab to nail down one more thing when they are finished. Which we do.
How does all this help students get into the books to prepare for tests?
Then we do the inevitable seat work, but it is accomplished in a collegial atmosphere, and conducted along with the follow-up to the seminar they wanted to do. I tell them to list all of their discoveries; their group’s and the other groups’. I’ve observed that they know more, better, than I could ever teach them via direct teaching. Then, I test them. First with my test, which is mostly essay, and which they do their usual work on. The next day, they get the publisher’s test. Not long after the test begins, comments start coming in: “This is easy.” “This is boring.” “This barely covers the basics.” These students own their learnings. Their locus of control for their education resides within their person.
How do you view this way of teaching so you can try it? The whole thing is driven by a question the student raises. This act generates an incipient concept, a bootstrap I can use to make sure that facts are discovered to clarify the concept. These elusive facts which clarify students’ thoughts about the concepts and processes they are engaging are what I call, “needs to know.” What happens in your brain when you need to know something: a forgotten ingredient in a recipe, how much you spent on auto maintenance last year, where is Qatar? Your inner self is mobilized, and you find the facts. And they clarify. From time to time, they raise further questions. Likewise with students. Their “Need to Know” generates a search for relevant facts.
There is a difference between immersing students in the facts as they give form to the concept and medium, and committing facts to rote memory in the presence or absence of the medium. The difference between hypothetico-deductive and verification activities. The great majority of publishers’ activities are verification inquiries, with students simply verifying what they have been told they will find. Where is the brain’s role in this? Verification is clerk’s work; self-directed inquiry is brain’s work.
To do this kind of teaching, teachers must be comfortable with the concepts and processes embedded in their curricula, and with allowing their students to think. This is not easy at first. Teachers perceive that control has moved from themselves to the students; enough to make many have second thoughts. Clean structure in the learning environment and faith in the students’ integrity will make it work. And building their capacity for actively participating in effective work groups.
Asking and answering inquiry questions in an effective work group provides a nearly perfect environment for all students to learn any content for understanding. Note that I am not claiming the same for memorizing content particulars for tests. The main criterion of the teaching I support is that the student’s brain has to be an active participant in developing the concepts and engaging curricular particulars. It’s difficult to become comfortable with this way of teaching at first; at least, it was for me. I did, not sure how, make myself check where my students were relative to other students in their understandings. To see how they were doing, I followed up by talking with their teachers in the next grade when I could, to compare their outcomes on publishers’ tests compared with other classes. I focused on my bottom 25th percentile, who usually did well.
Memorizing material to pass tests does not personally empower most people. Learning for understanding does. These two approaches to learning aren’t necessarily incompatible. In the United States, we don’t seem to understand what the two approaches mean, and tend to emphasize the former over the latter. Learning for understanding is a student-centered process. It takes time to let our teacher-centered part of us relax and let the students follow their questions. And to elucidate the successive approximations of students who are involved and invested in their learnings; approximations which mark the road they are on: Students who own what they know and will know. ❏
Jim Martin is a retired but still very active science educator who writes a regular blog on science and learning for CLEARING. You can them at www.clearingmagazine.org.
by editor | Sep 2, 2025 | Critical Thinking, Learning Theory, STEM, Teaching Science, Technology
by Kathryn Davis
According to the United Nations, each year enough plastic is thrown away to circle the earth four times, and these plastics can take over 1000 years to degrade! Sobering facts such as these and images illustrating the devastating effect of plastic waste on wildlife can leave many feeling paralyzed and hopeless.
While there are startling examples of the negative impact humans have had on the earth, there are also stories of innovation and incredible problem solving. I shared with my students the story of the engineer in India who created edible utensils, replacing plastic forks and knives with cutlery that is both delicious and eco-friendly, and the graduate student designing biodegradable clamshell containers from actual clamshells. I want my students to be inspired by these stories, and to feel hopeful that through human innovation and design, we can begin to tackle problems and make changes that can alter our current environmental trajectory.
This is why I’m so excited about the Engineering Design Performance Standards from the NGSS. These standards are the perfect way for students to learn how to design solutions to real problems we face as a society. Often in science classes we bring awareness to issues such as climate change and pollution, but we may fail to arm students with the tools they’ll need to design solutions to these problems. Engineering provides these tools and is also a way to engage even the most reluctant students. This year, I’m working with a group of high school students who have been unsuccessful in science in the past, and I was looking for a new way to help them connect with their learning.
Why Are We Learning This?
When I was introduced to Science and Innovation — The Boeing Company and Teaching Channel collaboration — through my work with the Tch NextGen Science Squad, I couldn’t wait to test drive the engineering-focused units with my own students. The ten units are geared toward middle school, the “sweet spot” for curriculum development. This curriculum can be easily adapted to fit both elementary and high school needs as well, by making modifications that will serve your students where they are academically.
I chose the Polymers for the Planet unit because it had a direct connection to what my students were already learning about photosynthesis, yet provided a real world application. In this unit, students use biopolymers (starches) to develop and test a bioplastic. Yes, we’ve all learned that plants make food, but what else can we do with those glucose molecules? What useful products can be developed from the starches created by plants? And how can this help solve a major environmental problem?
This unit allows me to answer that ever-present question in the classroom: Why are we learning this? How does this apply to my life?
I reached out to Jessica Levine, one of the authors of the curriculum and the teacher highlighted in the unit’s accompanying Polymers video, for tips and suggestions. She brought to my attention a great number of resources highlighting the environmental impact of plastics that allowed me to provide my students with some much-needed perspective on the state of our environment. It was so helpful to be able to reach out to her via Teaching Channel, and later to chat on the phone, exchanging ideas for how to best teach this unit.
Considerations For My Students
With any curriculum, teachers will always consider the unique needs of their students. Here are a few things I had to consider about my high school sophomores:
• The majority of my class is considered “at-risk,” in addition to being comprised of a high percentage of special education students and English language learners
• Collecting and analyzing data is challenging and they lack experience
• Using mathematical operations to analyze data will be difficult
• My students have reading skills that are at or below the eighth grade level
Conclusion: My students need a lot of scaffolding!
In order to scaffold, I provided tools to help my students “read to learn,” including an anticipation guide and Frayer model to guide them as they read about bioplastics. These strategies helped my students focus on what they already knew about the topic before reading, and then directed their attention to specific details while reading for background information. Instead of the provided notebook materials from the downloadable Polymers for the Planet unit plan, students continued to work in their classroom interactive notebook, where we recorded vocabulary, formulas, and data throughout the project.
We used the engineering design process diagram to keep us focused throughout the project. Each day we revisited this image and talked about where we were in the process, and where we were going next.
The CER Framework
Arguing from evidence using the CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning) format is another new aspect of the NGSS Science and Engineering practices. To help my students, I provided graphic organizers to record their evidence, and used sentence frames to guide their reasoning to support a claim for their redesign. The opportunity for students to use evidence to drive their redesign was powerful — this process helped to solidify for them the importance of using data to drive decisions. After their prototypes were tested, they were eager to find out which formulas yielded the best results, and used this information to make new iterations to their design.
Surprising Outcomes
Here’s what we’ve discovered so far:
• When testing tensile strength of the bioplastics, the testing setup failed due to the large amount of weight that the plastics were able to withstand. This led to students engineering and redesigning the test itself! When the provided protocol failed them, they came up with creative solutions and collaborated in ways that I haven’t previously observed. When one group observed another struggling with the same issues, they collaborated to build new solutions and test ideas.
• Of course, not all of the bioplastics were easy to test for various reasons. But because students had a sense of ownership and wanted to test the product they designed, the level of problem solving I observed was far beyond that in previous lab activities. The students were motivated to test and gather data for their samples, and figured out how to make this possible, with very little help from me.
• I saw opportunities for individual students to shine who didn’t usually do so in class. One particular student became a creative problem solver and designed multiple ways to test tensile strength. He also helped other groups, showing an interest in class that I hadn’t previously seen.
We’re now at the stage of putting it all together. Students are creating presentations, and in an effort to motivate them to do their best, I’ve invited other adults (teachers, administrators, instructional assistants) to serve as an authentic audience to view the students’ presentations about their engineering design process. Wish them luck!
Kathryn Davis is a science teacher at Hood River Valley High School in Hood River, Oregon. She has been teaching science for 13 years. Kathryn is a Stanford graduate, Teach For America Bay Area alumni, and Amgen Biotechnology Experience teacher. She is currently working as a Professional Growth Coach for her school district and is excited to be a part of Teaching Channel’s Tch Next Gen Science Squad. Connect with her on Twitter: @biokathryn.
by editor | Jun 19, 2024 | Critical Thinking, Environmental Literacy, Experiential Learning, Features on Outstanding Programs, Marine/Aquatic Education, Outdoor education and Outdoor School, Outstanding Programs in EE, Place-based Education, Teaching Science
How to Design Field-based Research Experiences
By Molly L. Sultany, msultany@nwacademy.org
High School Teacher, Northwest Academy, Portland, Oregon
Navigating Unchartered Waters
How can educators help students feel more connected to the outdoors while engaging with the work of research scientists? Scientific research may feel elusive to high school students, an unknown world hidden behind a technical paper, a puzzling chi-square analysis, or a p-value waiting to be deciphered. Yet, participating in field-based research may improve students’ intrinsic motivation, build resiliency, and enhance their sense of personal agency and responsibility (Marley et. al, 2022). I believe that teaching students outdoors introduces novelty and authentic learning opportunities into an existing science curriculum (Behrendt & Franklin, 2014). In addition, field-based research experiences provide a compelling alternative to a digitally dominated learning environment, often inundated with electronic media. Benefits to students’ well-being may include a longer attention span, multi-sensory experiences, deeper context for learning, a sense of comradery and feelings of community belonging, as well as reduced stress and fewer signs of ADHD (Grimshaw et. al, 2016). Overall, introducing a fieldwork component to existing curriculum may enhance student engagement, improve critical thinking, and foster positive interpersonal skills.
At our field site in Cannon Beach, Ofregon, students measured 3,807 ochre sea stars with 54 total search hours.
How to Engage Students in Field-based Research Projects?
· Build Your Professional Network: Connect with other educators at your school, district, or area interested in developing student-led research projects. Attend professional development opportunities for science education.
· Partner with Local Non-Profit Organizations: Become a member of regional and national non-profit groups dedicated to environmental conservation. This may provide opportunities for volunteering where you can meet like-minded individuals and build lasting community connections to enhance your understanding of local environmental issues.
· Lead with Student Interests: Brainstorm ideas for research projects with students. Start with a field trip to a nearby park, green space, or natural habitat. Find ways to discuss local conservation issues as part of your curriculum. Be inspired by students’ own personal interests, curiosity, and inquiry.
· Create a Science Lunch & Learn Program: Invite STEM professionals from your school community or region to give a presentation during the lunch hour for students about science career pathways, current research, or ways to become involved with the larger scientific community.
· Video Chat with a Scientist: Get inspired by programs offered through NASA, NOAA, and the Nautilus Live: Ocean Exploration Trust to connect students virtually to scientists to learn more about their research.
Wearing hip waders and waterproof gloves, Northwest Academy students measured ochre sea star (Pisaster ochraceus) size classes, and observed signs of sea star wasting syndrome.
Local Spotlight: Diack Ecology Education Program
After attending an Oregon Science Teachers’ Association (OSTA) meeting, I learned about the inspiring work of the Diack Ecology Education Program. This unique program provides Oregon educators with financial support and pedagogical resources through grants, workshops, and programming. Their goal is to provide guidance for teachers to develop effective student-centered, field-based science inquiry experiences. I admire the program’s values: commitment to local stewardship, opportunities for student leadership and decision-making, and an emphasis on outdoor experiential learning. Through their website (https://www.diackecology.org/), teachers can apply to attend bi-annual workshops taught by experienced science educators, where they learn how to construct a science inquiry project centered on local field work. The Diack program strives to help teachers develop greater scientific literacy and build civic engagement on themes related to local ecology, natural history, and environmental science.
Over the past ten years, the Diack Ecology Education Program has funded multiple student research projects at Northwest Academy, an independent high school in Portland, Oregon. Participation in this program has connected my high school students to the larger scientific community, including The Johnson Creek Watershed Council, Portland State University, U.S. Stockholm Junior Water Prize Conference, and the Oregon Environmental Science Summit where students had the opportunity to present their research in person to Dr. Jane Goodall. These experiences have transformed our high school science research program, and introduced students to the wonder, joy, and complexity of the natural world. Past projects have included a study of local stream health (2014), the role of diatoms as indicators of water quality (2015), and microplastics in beach sand (2017). Our most recent project (2022) had a dual focus on how marine biota respond to environmental change by studying the prevalence of sea-star wasting syndrome in ochre sea stars (Pisaster ochraceus) and documenting nesting success of cormorants during the summer breeding season.
Benefits to Students
After our field research at the Oregon Coast in 2022, I learned that participating in field research has many direct benefits to adolescents, with transformative effects on socio-emotional learning, scientific literacy, and the development of a civic identity. By taking part in challenging field tasks in an unpredictable outdoor environment, students may develop an improved positive self-concept and increased self-esteem, seeing themselves as capable learners. One of my students reflected: “I learned that I have much more patience that I give myself credit for, and that I am also good at paying attention to details when I am observing.” In addition to these changes in self-perception, I believe there is value in helping students see science in action beyond textbook learning. This may, in turn, deepen students’ respect for the natural world. The student leader of our field team shared: “I learned about the shocking effects of sea star wasting syndrome, and what this damage for the sea star population could mean for the rocky intertidal ecosystem. With little prior knowledge of the effects of climate change or any practical interactions with climate change, seeing the effects of sea star wasting syndrome on the sea stars was immediately eye-opening.”
Lastly, participating in a science project with relevance to a region may strengthen students’ civic identity and build meaningful connections with their local community. It may also help students cultivate a personal connection with the natural world. While exploring the tidepools, each field day brought novel discoveries, keen observations, and many more scientific questions. By the end of our project, my students had become fiercely protective of our beach field site, which hosted incredibly diverse rocky intertidal habitat home to invertebrates, from crabs to chitons. One of my students shared: “walking through the sea cave at the tidepools and seeing all the biodiversity, from sea stars to isopods, was my favorite part of fieldwork. I want people to treat the world around us with respect. Interacting with the public and teaching them about this small part of marine conservation was meaningful and important to me.” This newfound sense of stewardship for the natural world was accompanied by their desire to teach others, share what they had learned, and reinforce proper tidepool etiquette at the beach.
Fostering Teacher Professional Learning Goals
Immersing students in dynamic environmental field research may also benefit educators in terms of curriculum design, pedagogy, and improved content knowledge. Inspired by field experiences with my students, I decided to incorporate themes related to marine biodiversity, ocean conservation, and anthropogenic global climate change into my high school science classes. Fieldwork reinforced the value of fostering creative and critical thinking with a flexible mindset in my approach to science teaching. It emphasized an inquiry model of the scientific method, fostering science process skills from observation to questioning. For many students who participated in fieldwork, this experience led to other opportunities to share their research findings at local science fairs, conferences, and school events. All in all, I believe that participating in field-based research projects will remain a valued tradition for our science program at Northwest Academy.
Acknowledgments
A special thank you to Mike Weddle, from the Diack Ecology Education Program, & Jesse Jones, CoastWatch Program Manager.
Works Cited
• Behrendt M & Franklin T. A review of research on school field trips and their value in education. International Journal of Environmental & Science Education. 2014 9 (10).
• Grimshaw M, Curwen L, Morgan J, Shallcross N, Franklin S, Shallcross D. The benefits of outdoor learning on science teaching. Journal of Emergent Science 2019, 16 (40).
• Marley SA, Siani A, Sims S. Real-life research projects improve student engagement and provide reliable data for academics. Ecol Evol. 2022, 8 (12).
by editor | Mar 17, 2024 | At-risk Youth, Critical Thinking, Data Collection, Environmental Literacy, Equity and Inclusion, IslandWood, Learning Theory, Outdoor education and Outdoor School, Place-based Education, Questioning strategies, Schoolyard Classroom, Teaching Science
At-risk students are exposed to their local environment to gain an appreciation for their community, developing environmental awareness built on knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors applied through actions.
Lindsay Casper and Brant G. Miller
University of Idaho
Moscow, Idaho
Photos by Jessie Farr
n the last day of class, I walked with my students along a local river trail shaded by cottonwood trees and surrounded by diverse plants and animals. The shaded areas provided spots for us to stop, where students assessed the condition of the local river system and the surrounding environment. The class had spent the previous week by the river’s mouth, and the students had grown a connection to the local environment and to each other. This was evident in their sense of ownership of the environment and their lasting relationships, which were expressed as the students discussed what they had learned during the class.
A month earlier, the class began differently. The students were focused on themselves and their own needs. They stood alone and unwilling to participate. Many expressed feelings of annoyance by being outside, forced to walk and unsure about what to expect in the class. My students were disengaged in their community, education, and the environment. Most had spent little time outside and lacked environmental knowledge and displayed an uncaring attitude toward their local community.
The class included a group of Youth-in-Custody (YIC) students, those who were in the custody of the State (the Division of Child and Family Services, DCFS; and the Division of Juvenile Justice, DJJS), as well as students who are “at-risk” for educational failure, meaning they have not succeeded in other school programs.
Most of my students came from challenging circumstances, with little support for formal educational opportunities, and live in urban areas below the poverty level. Students below the poverty level have fewer opportunities to access nature reserves safely (Larson et al., 2010), and children who live in neighborhoods where they do not feel safe are less likely to readily apply environmental knowledge and awareness to their community (Fisman, 2005).
Despite these setbacks, I wanted to expose my students to their local environment and help them gain an appreciation for their community. I wanted to increase their environmental awareness, built on knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors applied through actions.
The summer education program approached the environmental curriculum via an action-oriented strategy, which takes learning to a level where the class and the outside world integrate with actual practices and address environmental problems (Mongar et al., 2023). The students began to show an understanding of how knowledge can affect their environment and exhibited purpose behind their action. The steps in an action-oriented approach involves students identifying public policy problems, then selecting a problem for study, followed by researching the problem, and developing an explanation, and then finally communicating their findings to others (Fisman, 2005).
Students explored science content, studied sustainable issues, read relevant scientific literature, developed and carried out research, and analyzed data. This multi-step program enabled students to stay active and engaged in environmental science practices and processes, increased their environmental awareness, encouraged them to implement these practices in a real-world environment, and allowed them to immerse in the learning experience. The program developed a connection with environmental restoration, crossed cultural borders and demographic diversity, created a sense of ownership and attachment, and developed a sense of belonging.
Week 1: Invasive Species in Mount Timpanogos Wildlife Management Area
The first week, students monitored a local problem of invasive plants by conducting a field project on vegetation sampling at a wildlife management area. Students researched the area and the issues with the invasive species of cheatgrass. They examined the characteristics that make cheatgrass invasive and used skills to identify local native plants and introduced species in the wilderness. Students determined the problem and used a transect line and percent canopy cover to determine the area’s overall percent cover of cheatgrass. Students used the results of the survey to evaluate the cheatgrass invasion in the area. They compiled their research and presented the issue to local community members to educate and inform them about the possible environmental problems in the area.
Students working in the national forest studying the role of trees in carbon cycling.
Week 2: Carbon Cycling in Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest
During week two, the program evaluated forest carbon cycling within a wilderness area, part of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. The students’ projects involved carbon cycling models and forest carbon sinks to build a comprehensive summary of all the structures and processes involved in trees to help reduce the impact of human activity on the climate. Students identified problems in their local forests by researching the role of forests in carbon sequestration and evaluating climate change. They then selected a problem for the class to study involving the effects of deforestation. Additional research included students discovering how trees sequester carbon and researching how much carbon trees and forests can hold over a given time. Students used their results and data collection to determine how effective trees are for carbon sequestration, compiled their research, and presented the issue to local community members to educate and inform them of the possible environmental problems in deforestation and the need for forested area protection.
Week 3: Jordan River Watershed Management
Week three focused on watershed management, during which students investigated a local river and evaluated its watershed and continued pollution. Students identified problems in their community by reading articles and examining data concerning a local river’s environmental issues, proposed solutions, as well as the progress that has been achieved. Students then made qualitative statements about the river’s current condition based on abiotic and biotic measurements. Students used the information gathered and discussed issues concerning the current quality of the river and discussed why water quality is essential. Students researched the issue by conducting river water quality experiments using flow rate measurements and collected macroinvertebrates. Based on their experimental results, students developed a portfolio with a problem explanation, alternative policies, and a public statement concerning the current Jordan River water quality. Students then presented their findings to community members to help inform and educate them about the river contamination and improvements.
Student collecting water samples.
Week 4: Provo River Delta Restoration Project
During the last week, students examined a river delta restoration project for its effectiveness in restoring a wetland and recovering an endangered fish species. Students investigated the role and importance of river systems and wetland areas, monitored the status of the wetlands, and evaluated the current project’s future effectiveness. Students identified problems in their community by reading articles and examining historical data concerning the lakes environmental issues and made qualitative statements about the lake’s current condition. Students used the information gathered and discussed matters concerning the delta project to protect the local endangered species of June Sucker (Chasmistes liorus). In addition, students toured the construction site and participated in a stewardship activity planting new trees and helping to disperse cottonwood seeds around the area. Based on their stewardship project, a site tour, and experimental results, students developed a portfolio with a problem explanation, alternative policies, and a public statement concerning the current delta restoration project. Students presented their findings to others with the intent to inform and educate them about the project.
Student Impact
This program placed students as critical participants in sustainability and gave them ownership of their education, and knowledge of local environmental issues to give students a deeper appreciation and increased environmental awareness. This curriculum could be adapted for various populations although it is especially essential for those with disadvantaged backgrounds and those underrepresented in science. Creating an opportunity for my students to access nature and build environmental knowledge is important for them to build awareness and an increased ownership of their community. After completing the course, students wrote a reflection on their experience and a summary of what they learned concerning environmental awareness and feelings regarding their connection to nature.
“At first, I hated being outside, but it grew on me, and I had a lot of fun learning about the different invasive species and how they negatively affect the land.”
“I really enjoyed being outside for school. I liked the shaded and natural environments. It was enjoyable and easier to understand because I was learning about everything I could feel and touch.”
“I liked seeing the things we were learning about. It was easier to focus outside.”
Student working on writing assignments during the last day of class.
“I have had a lot of issues with school my whole life. I have never felt like what I was learning was useful. I felt like I was repeating work from former years over and over again and never getting anything out of it. After this experience, I began thinking that maybe the problem wasn’t what we were learning but where we were learning it. It was enjoyable being outside and seeing how what we were learning applied to the world around us. I got to see what we were being taught in action. We did tests with the world and not in a classroom. For the first time, I was really interested in what was being taught, and I realized that the problem wasn’t me.”
The importance of connecting at-risk youth to the outdoors is evident in their reflections. Their reflections indicate an appreciation for being outdoors, a more remarkable ability to focus their attention, and an advantage of learning in the world instead of the classroom. Students’ perception of environmental issues impacts their ability to make educated decisions. The increase in students place identity resulted in a deeper connection to the environment. Their knowledge, attitudes, and actions had changed.
Conclusion
On the last day of class, walking along the river trail with my students, I listened to their conversations, questioned their learning, and gathered their insights. I recognized how the connections made in class developed over time by building relationships, collaboration, trust, and teamwork. My students developed empathy for each other and their environment. As a class, we visited four distinct settings in our local area. My students could grasp the larger perspective by recognizing the cumulative effect of those areas as a whole. They identified the invasive species of cheatgrass studied in week one had made its way downriver and recognized the importance of carbon cycling studied during week two in the cottonwood trees flanking the banks of the river in addition to the value in wetlands studies in week three shown in the progress made on the restoration project. The sequence of each week was purposely built on the following week with a cumulative effort at the river delta restoration project, put in place to help solve many of the environmental issues identified in the previous week’s lessons. This program focuses on increasing student connection and ownership of the environment and identifying how isolated environmental concerns significantly impact the whole ecosystem. Additionally, I wanted my students to notice how environmental restoration and protection alleviate some of these issues. These connections came naturally to the students after the time spent outdoors and investigating environmental issues. Exposing them to new areas and increasing their knowledge and skills affects their awareness.
The environmental science program provided environmental concepts, fostering a deeper appreciation for nature and the outdoors. It engaged all senses, made learning more interactive and memorable, and encouraged more profound connections with the natural world, building ownership of the local area. This program initiated an attachment of students to the local area. It engaged students in environmental issues through science by participating in experiential outdoor education. It kept students engaged with relevant current topics, formed a connection to the natural world, and involved them in direct, focused experiences to increase knowledge, skills, and values.
Lindsay Casper is a graduate student in Environmental Science at the University of Idaho, in Moscow Idaho and teaches Environmental Science to at-risk youth at Summit High School in Utah.
Brant G. Miller, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Science Education at the University of Idaho. His research interests include Adventure Learning, culturally responsive approaches to STEM education, science teacher education, and technology integration within educational contexts.
by editor | Mar 2, 2024 | Environmental Literacy, Place-based Education, Schoolyard Classroom, Teaching Science
by Erin Banks Rusby. Reprinted from the Idaho Press
n the summer of 2023, a group of high school students and adults converged over their shared interest in science and dragonflies.
Known as the Finding Dragons program, the effort aimed to provide hands-on, publishable research experience to high school students and adults, while answering some key questions about the health and history of dragonfly species — offering clues into how they have weathered stress in the past, and how they might be affected by climate change.
Their findings so far have been published in the International Journal of Odontology, with the students listed as co-authors, and a second currently under review for publication.
Jisong Ryu, a junior at Timberline High School, is interested in working in the environmental science and public policy field. Participating in the dragonfly research offered an opportunity to practice some of those research skills, and in the process, build friendships and fortitude in the face of challenging times.
“I think those efforts of understanding the problem more gives me hope and less worry about how things will be,” Ryu said.
The Charisma of Dragonflies
Insects are one of the first animals kids notice, drawn in by their seemingly alien features, said Dick Jordan, a retired science teacher who taught for 40 years at Timberline High School.
Jordan is also the founder of Life Outdoors, a nonprofit whose programs focus on connection with the outdoors and learning about conservation.
In 2021, a former student of Jordan’s, Ethan Tolman, reached out about helping Jordan survey dragonfly species in the Boise River watershed. Tolman, now a Ph.D. student at the City University of New York, wanted to look at the abundance of different dragonfly species along the Boise River.
Kristin Gnojewski, Boise Parks and Recreation’s community volunteer specialist, had trained community volunteers on dragonfly identification for a community monitoring program, and a volunteer read about the Finding Dragons program in the newspaper, asking if their group could participate. Soon, both students and community science volunteers were banding together to participate in the Finding Dragons program.
Tolman, Jordan, and Gnojewski said dragonflies make a great study subject for understanding the urban environment because they are easily recognizable and charismatic. They are not difficult to find in the Treasure Valley’s green spaces, Gnojewski said. Their aerial agility and iridescent colors make them fascinating to watch, Tolman said, noting that they appear in pop culture, like the flying machines, or ornithopters, in the Dune movies.
Dragonflies are also some of the most efficient predators, Tolman said. Known for intercepting prey rather than just chasing it, studies indicate they have a 90% success rate for snagging their target, he said.
The aquatic nymphs are eaten by fish species and other animals, while also doing their own hunting, Jordan said.
“They really are wonderful bioindicators of the health of a river,” Jordan said.
Dick Jordan, left, holds a blue dasher dragonfly as student volunteers look on. Student and adult volunteers collected blue dashers near the Parkcenter Pond in Boise in August for genome sequencing. Photo courtesy of Jisong Ryu
Time Traveling with Biological Clocks
When the DNA of a species is sequenced, it can be read as a sort of code to understand the evolutionary changes the species has undergone over time.
When Tolman approached Jordan about studying DNA sequences of dragonfly species, he likened it to a kind of time travel — a way to peer into the species’ history, Jordan said.
“When he mentioned time travel, it was just like the light came on,” Jordan said. “What an exciting way to get these kids to go back in time and think about how these species — which have been around a lot longer than us — dealt with climate change.”
In 2023, they investigated two lines of inquiry: analyzing the genomes of dragonflies that had already been sequenced, and sequencing the genome of a local species, the blue dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis).
To accomplish the latter, students and volunteers from Gnojewski’s program went to the Parkcenter Pond to catch blue dashers. The day lives on as a highlight of the program so far, with the students and city volunteers coming together to do fieldwork.
For Ella Driever, now a senior at Timberline High School, it was her first time doing field work, an exciting step for the aspiring wildlife biologist. The experience ‘sealed the deal’ on her interest in wildlife biology, she said. That day, she was also the first person to catch a blue dasher, a feat given their nimble flying capabilities.
“That was the first time I actually got to have a real creature that I was studying in my hands,” Driever said. “That was just magical.”
The specimens collected from near the pond were sent to Brigham Young University for sequencing, Jordan said.
Bringing it All Together
In August 2023, the Finding Dragons group hosted a two-day, intensive biodiversity workshop that invited everyone who participated in the project to hear presentations from Tolman and Jordan, as well as scientists from around the country about conservation research efforts.
Though the initial intent was to analyze and write the scientific manuscript about the blue dasher’s genome during the second day of the workshop, the sequencing was not yet completed. Instead, the group pivoted to analyzing the genomes of three species whose genome sequences were already available to the scientific community, seeing how they had responded to past climate change as a practice round for doing the same for the blue dasher, Tolman explained.
The group looked at the genomes of two damselflies, one from Europe and one from the western U.S., and a dragonfly from Europe. The students had the chance to do some of the computational analysis, Tolman said.
Ella Driever holds up a blue dasher dragonfly that she caught near the Parkcenter Pond as Augie Gabrielli looks on. Student and adult volunteers with the Finding Dragons project collected blue dashers near the Parkcenter Pond in Boise in August for genome sequencing. Photo courtesy of Ella Driever
The analysis revealed that none of those species appear susceptible to climate change. That is still a valuable finding as it helps scientists prioritize policy for species that are the most vulnerable, said Or Bruchim, a senior at Timberline High School that helped with the computational analysis.
“We have limited resources to alleviate the impacts of climate change,” Bruchim said. “The species that we need to protect, we should definitely allocate more resources according to how much they’re impacted. So we shouldn’t waste our resources on a species that’s not going to be too impacted by the effects of climate change.”
By the end of the day, through dividing up the different sections of manuscript, the group had a draft of about 80% of the research paper. The results were published in the International of Odonatology, with the students and city volunteers listed as co-authors.
When the blue dasher genome information came back, the students were tasked with assembling that as well, Tolman said. With the help of some additional analysis from Tolman and other scientists, they were able to write a manuscript looking at broader changes in the dragonfly order Odonata.
The manuscript is currently being reviewed by the journal Gigascience, with the students listed as authors.
Future Blue Dasher Inquiries, Future Connections
Tolman and Jordan anticipate that the information contained in the blue dasher genome can be used for an additional five or more years of scientific inquiries for students, and anyone who makes use of the publicly available data.
For example, how closely related is the Boise blue dasher to blue dashers that live elsewhere, and do they have traits that make them able to survive in cities?
Jordan says he also hopes to apply the research model to study mayflies in the McCall area, connecting with the fishing community there, he said.
The leaders and participants also highlighted the wide-ranging mental health benefits that come with scientific research efforts.
Driever said that she keeps a busy schedule with activities like playing varsity volleyball and working a part-time job.
“When I get to go do these fieldwork things, and I meet these people, I allow that nature that I’m protecting to ground me and keep myself from being burnt out,” she said.
Bruchim said his involvement shows him that others care about the same issues and are taking action toward solutions.
“It’s a really enlightening experience, and you’re able to make connections with people that share the same values and are passionate about the same things you are,” he said, “so it’s a big mental weight off, and it makes you feel more in control of the situation.”
Erin Banks Rusby covers Caldwell and Canyon County. She reports on local government, agriculture, the environment, and more. She can be reached at erusby@idahopress.com
Suzanne Major is an anthropologist and early childhood educator. She received her Ph. D. in 2015, with mention of excellence, in Anthropology of Early Childhood Education from the University of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She also has a master’s degree in Child Studies which was obtained in 2004 at Concordia University, in Montreal, Canada. She has worked 12 years as Director for the Early Childhood Studies Program of the University of Montreal’s Faculty of Permanent Education.