By Eleanor Steinhagen, photos by Bruce Livingston
The Pacific Education Institute (PEI) is a statewide 501(c)(3) professional learning organization that empowers educators to take students outdoors to learn integrated, real-world science. In this guest post by PEI, Communications Coordinator Eleanor Steinhagen shares the importance of place-based learning in youth education, and the vital partnerships that make this magic happen. You can read the full version in the PEI Newsletter here.
Two seventh graders have just tossed their pears into Johns Creek and are jogging downstream to see which one will cross the finish line first. Maneuvering around a large maple tree and jagged rocks on the stream’s bank, a handful of their classmates jog with them, including two “timers” who hold stopwatches in front of their chests, ready to hit the stop button when their designated pear reaches the finish line.
The race is one of three that this group of thirteen students will conduct to measure streamflow in the creek at Capitol Land Trust’s Bayshore Preserve.
The Preserve is a 74- acre former golf course three miles northwest of Shelton, conserved by Capitol Land Trust in 2014. The students are at the preserve on a class field trip, one of two this year to as part of a program to bring experiential STEM learning into the outdoors.
The students also witnessed macroinvertebrates in the stream, discussed food webs and biodiversity, and learned about water quality in fresh and salt water ecosystems. Throughout the lesson, they used field journals to take notes and record data, including the depth and width of the section of the creek they were studying—information they would use to perform calculations in math class later that week.
Capitol Land Trust has been instrumental in getting this program off the ground in a three-year collaboration to bring high impact field experiences to every student in the Shelton School District.
The program started with a conversation at a community stakeholder meeting in 2014 with the Pacific Education Institute (PEI), Shelton School District, and Capitol Land Trust. Since the fall of 2015, Capitol Land Trust has been facilitating these field investigations for every seventh grader in the Shelton School District—serving around 300 students per year—using PEI’s trademark FieldSTEM model as a foundation for the work.
The FieldSTEM model is based on real-world, project-based, career-connected science education. It allows kids to connect with local environments while engaging them in real-world science.
“A lot of kids today are not getting exposed to the outdoors, not having experiences outside,” says Susie Vanderburg, volunteer teacher for the Bayshore program. “They’re not given opportunities to love the land and be fascinated.”
Luckily, field trips to the Bayshore Preserve are giving Shelton seventh graders the opportunity to nurture their curiosity in the outdoors. On the first day of the field investigation, one group of students was very concerned about a hermit crab that had shed its shell in the molting process. They spent ten minutes trying to persuade the crab to crawl into a shell they’d found on the shore while offering various words of encouragement: “You want your shell!” and “Come on, man, you need a home!”
The impact of these outdoor learning experience is evident when students return to the classroom. “When we are going over ‘producer, consumer and decomposer,’” says Viola Moran, student teacher at Olympic Middle School, “they are relating back to the information they got at Bayshore.”
Science teacher and PEI-collaborator Wendy Boles agrees. In her students Wendy has noticed an increased awareness and concern about climate change and environmental issues. She sees field investigations as an opportunity to help kids make the connection between these issues and how they impact their community.
Putting together this program is a big commitment, with time and resources dedicated by Capitol Land Trust and PEI staff, teachers, and local volunteers. But these partners know that connecting kids to land is worth the effort.
“In environmental education we always say, once you get to know something, like a wetland or a prairie, then you begin to care about it. It’s personal,” explains Susie Vanderburg. “And if you care about it, then you’re willing to do something to protect it.”
At Bayshore, partners have come together to seize this opportunity by providing every 6th and 7th grade student in the Shelton School District with real-world, project-based, career-connected science education. The hope is that this education will enable them to lead richer and more meaningful lives. And that they, in turn, will draw from their time exploring and learning science out in their community to generate change where they can.
*If you are interested in volunteering to help students learn project-based science at Bayshore, please contact Mary Birchem, Restoration Coordinator at Capitol Land Trust, at mary@capitollandtrust.org .
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To learn more about PEI programs and how to bring FieldSTEM to your school or school district, please visit www.pacificeducationinstitute.org .