Bringing Students to the Environment

School Partner: Many Farms High School

Canyon de Chelly National Monument provides water for human and animal consumption. Students from Many Farms High School monitored water quality at Canyon de Chelly National Monument, focusing on how local landforms and mineral deposits impact water quality and the vegetation and animal life that can survive in the region. Students also examined the effects of invasive species on the local watershed, including impacts on native vegetation and soil erosion. They presented their findings to the local communities that rely on Canyon de Chelly’s natural resources.

Canyon de Chelly holds a prominent place in Navajo culture and history, and there are many influential stories which are based in the Canyon. Various strands of this project also fostered greater Navajo cultural awareness in the students.

School Partner: Clark County School District

Craters of the Moon worked with Clark County School District and the City of Dubois. The Clark County School District’s after school program has an enrollment of 50 students that range in age from Kindergarten through 7^th Grade.

The hands-on, inquiry based program helped students physically and scientifically engage with the snow at Craters of the Moon. Students dug a snow pit to take temperature readings and density measurements at different levels of the snowpack. Students collected, measured, and weighed snow samples to test hypotheses and draw conclusions. Students also performed a snow water equivalency test to determine how much water the snow contained. Because of the porous volcanic rock at Craters of the Moon, the snowpack in the park has a direct relationship to river flows and water supplies of all of the surrounding communities.

School Partners: Cherokee Middle School, Cherokee High School, New Kituah Academy

In Phase 1 of this project, students investigated the impacts of acid deposition and air pollution on park resources through a variety of citizen science projects designed to provide the park with long-term monitoring information. The projects were designed by park resource management staff in conjunction with local teachers, park resource education staff, and collaborating researchers. Students learned how to utilize various forms of technology to collect data while in the park that will be entered into long-term monitoring databases housed on the Hands on the Land website (ozone bio-monitoring, water quality, salamanders, terrestrial invertebrates, and lichens).

In Phase 2 of the program, four middle school students and two middle school teachers from each of the participating 21^st CCLC school systems in Western North Carolina attended a two-day, three-night retreat at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont. At the retreat, students participated in a variety of citizen science projects and teachers collaborated on developing a series of citizen science projects that they then set up on their own school campuses. After the retreat, the students and teachers visited each school campus to help collect data for the various projects. The projects were then teacher-led and available to any student attending the participating schools. This portion of the project created a community of practice for participating teachers and schools.

School Partner: Thomas Jameson Elementary School

Students replaced non-native cover (farmland) with native grasses and forbs, while engaging local native communities in restoring their ancestral lands. Students learned about the prairie cycle, plant identification, and invasive and noxious species. Students also used tools to report humidity, temperature, and wind, and used the iNaturalist app to record species and observations in the field. Students targeted sites for planting/seeding, and learned to plant forbs within the restoration plots. They also presented their findings to peers and the community.

Students took identical measurements at the school or near their school to compare and contrast between their site and the park’s site. This allowed everyone to see the success and failure of reseeding and planting by keeping a baseline of “non-restored” prairie. This will also allow students to see the health and progression of restoring native prairie over years to come.

School Partner: Lummi Nation School

In the Summit to Sea project, students investigated water quality in local rivers from the Cascade Mountains to the Salish Sea. The rivers that were tested included the Cascade River, Skagit River, and the Nooksack River. Skills students learned over the course of the program were testing water quality, monitoring and evaluating research, and creating a hypothesis. Bringing park rangers to the school and providing learning tools to the school was designed to increase capacity and knowledge of staff to continue this work.

School Partner: Quileute Tribal School

Students at Quileute Tribal School participated in a number of investigations related to salmon sustainability in their coastal community. Park rangers visited the school once per week to facilitate a variety of STEM based field inquiries. During classroom visits and two field trip visits to Olympic National Park, students had the opportunity to implement site specific long-term monitoring protocols used by park natural resource staff. Topics included freshwater quality monitoring, marine debris, climate change, ocean acidification, salmon lifecycle, forage fish sampling, and snow science.

One of the primary themes of the project was introducing students to relevant natural resource related issues that may affect them and their community. Park education rangers collaborated with Quileute natural resources staff to introduce career paths in the natural resources field.

School Partners: Rio Grande Educational Collaborative (George I. Sanchez School; Janet Kahn School; Hawthorne Elementary School)

The National Park Service and the City of Albuquerque Open Space are land management partners for Petroglyph National Monument. As official partners, this project took place throughout the public lands that both agencies own and manage. Student participants traveled to a variety of natural landscapes and environmental habitats learning about the natural ecosystem of each type of biome. Students learned about the air quality in their own city by taking air quality measurements using an AirBeam unit, then analyzed the data to find out what steps they could take to improve air quality, improve their health, and improve the health of the community. Students documented their participation over the duration of the citizen science project and at the completion of this project, provided a presentation about their findings to their student peers.

School Partners: Ha:sañ Prep, Santa Rosa Day School, Tohono O’odham High School

The Lost Carnivores project expanded on a successful program engaging students to assist the park in finding five species of small carnivores not documented in 10 years. Students set cameras in the park and at schools to collect data to help the park determine management strategies. Classes were divided into research teams and assigned a lost species. Each team research habitat requirements and determined locations to place their cameras in the park. On field trips, students located cameras, analyzed habitat, re-set cameras, and recorded information. In the classroom, teams reviewed, organized, and shared data with teams from other schools and the park. Students practiced inquirybased science skills, completed research, strategized data collection techniques, developed and analyzed a database, and developed an understanding of a relevant/real world science challenge. Teams presented their management strategies for their “lost” species to park staff.