Taking the Classroom to the Outdoors

Article by Paula Brown-Williams
Appearing in the Mar. 12, 2001 Inyo Register

A new $750,000 outdoor science program for Inyo County Schools views the Owens Valley landscape as a vast outdoor science laboratory. The project takes the rewatering of the lower Owens River as its centerpiece, linking required science studies with real life situations.

The program is both inclusive and innovative, taking in six school district in the Owens Valley, plus Death Valley and reaching out to not only students and teachers, but also resident scientists and everyday people. More than 700 school students, 30 teachers and 30 to 50 community members, trained as outdoor science guides, will participate.

Teachers, who are isolated and rarely get to share resources, will come together and receive professional development training in science education. Sixth-, seventh-, and ninth-grade students will take part the in hands on outdoor science activities as they study watersheds, collect data to document conditions along the lower Owens River--both before and after the river restoration--and finish with projects that they come up with on their own and work on independently.Eighth graders were not excluded but previously spoken for, as the Cal Tech Owens Valley Radio Observatory develops an astronomy field class program for that grade level.

Linda Barton White, a member of the grant review committee for the Eisenhower Professional State Grant Program, said the proposal was one of an initial pool of 140 proposals generated throughout the state. "First and foremost we were interested in serving rural teachers," White said, adding that while the number of students served by the grant is comparatively low, the award could be justified because, "teachers in rural areas are often overlooked."

Another aspect of the grant that stood out, White said, was that hands on science would be related to a real world environmental issue--the restoration of the Owens River. White said hands-on science is a proven teaching method, and the Owens River project represents the next logical step. "This project takes the methodology to a new level, applying to an existing situation in the real world."

The studies will cover earth and life sciences. Publishing on the Internet and videoconferencing will be integrated into the program. Teachers and students will learn how to used advanced computer-aided data collection technology, such as Global Positioning Systems and Geographic Information Systems, in addition to tried and true methods of collecting data. Local science teachers will develop the coursework during multiple one-week summer academies. Teachers will share their newly acquired skills with community members who in turn will work with small groups of students on the grant projects out in the field.

But the focus isn't exclusively on advanced science. The program includes multi-cultural perspectives that weave together the history of Owens River beginning with the Native American use of the lands along the river and finishing with the historic rewatering of the lower 60 miles. Targeting a unique population, such as students from the Bishop Paiute Tribe, was another stand out aspect of the plan, according to White. Among the objectives, the project will address cultural issues in science education.

Traditional skills documented along the river include gathering and preparing medicinal plants and basketmaking materials, and harvesting freshwater clams. Students from the Bishop Indian Education Center will learn the history from Paiute Elders. "It's good for the kids to listen to the elders and it's good for the elders to see that the kids are trying to do something positive, that the kids really do care about trying to retain the cultural traditions of the community," Carl Hernandez, the center's science program coordinator, said. Laura Grant, a documentary maker who has worked with the Owens Valley Career Development Center, said the students will learn how to use video equipment, then they will tape each other making traditional homes, harvesting food, and making tule duck decoys.

In addition to the Eisenhower Foundation, financial support for the program comes from the California Department of Education and the H.N. and Francis C. Berger Foundation.Project participants include the Inyo County Office of Education (ICOE) and the University of California White Mountain Research Station (WMRS). ICOE curriculum specialist, Lo Lyness, called the project, "very collaborative" with leadership shared between herself and WMRS academic coordinator and founder of the Eastern Sierra Institute for Collaborative Education, Dr. Susan Szewczak. Other involved agencies and organizations include the Inyo County Water Department (ICWD), Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, California Department of Fish and Game, University of California Davis, and the University of California Riverside.

The objective is to "get kids out in the field to collect data that has a real purpose, to get them fire up and able to understand concepts of science more deeply," Lyness said. But no one knows the program on a day to day basis better than the two project coordinators, Leigh Parmenter and Katie Quilan. They helped design and conduct, Scientists in the Classroom, Students in the Field, a pilot project that tested the basic concepts last year with Home Street School sixth-graders.

The kids were divided into groups of 5 that moved from station to station conducting different procedures that ranged from testing the water quality of a neighboring creek to catching and measuring fish. Quilan said she spent 7 years teaching and never saw a program so well received by everyone--from the students to the parents, teachers and administrators. Parmenter and Quilan recalled one teacher that was is disbelief after hearing a certain student volunteered to stay after class to work on a project and kept asking when they would go out again.

This year all the sixth-grade students will get to go again this spring; the first group from Tecopa went to a spring-fed creek at China Ranch Date Farm Monday, March 4th. Each of the other sixth-grade classes will also visit nearby creeks where they will measure water quality and stream flows; survey plant life and aquatic invertebrates; and trap, weigh, and measure fish.

Next year the seventh-graders will visit the lower Owens River to gather data that will be compiled and compared over the years. According to Lyness, the objective is more about the process than the data, and if the rewatering is delayed, "we'll have more baseline data," she said. But if the students and teachers pull the data together and make an analysis, "we'd be crazy not to listen," ICWD environmental specialist, Leah Kirk said, adding she viewed the student applying science in their own backyard as the greatest benefit. DWP Resource Manager Brian Tillemans said he wished the program was in place when his two daughters, currently in college, were going through the Bishop school sustem.

"I've already taken a couple of teachers out to the river," Tillemans said, adding that the focuse is on stream dynamics such as the connection between the flows and the vegetation, geology, and wildlife. Tillemans said the value is educational and politics will be set aside.

In 2003 the program will include ninth-grade students who will have the opportunity to do independent study projects, Parmenter and Quinlan said. The program coordinators also arrange for area scientists to come to the classes. One of them will be an independent researcher who has studied bighorn sheep for 3 decades. "John [Wehausen] always has the best timing," Parmenter said. "He comes strolling into the classroom with a backpack and a bighorn sheep skull and the kids love it," Quilan added.

The coordinators will make sure the program design has continuity as the student moves to the next grade, sixth graders studying watersheds this spring will build on that experience as seventh graders studying the Owens River next year. So what are they learning out there in the real world? The coordinators gave a small example, telling the story of the cubic foot box. During their watershed studies, Quilan brings in a box that holds exactly one cubic foot of water. The student guess how many gallons of water it takes to fill it. Next they pour gallon jugs of water in it, until the eighth gallon fills the box. Next they measure the stream flow--usually about 10 cubic feet per second. Then, Quilan said, they can see an abstract concept in a whole new way: "We say, imagine ten of those boxes traveling by every second."