Outdoor ed links classroom to real world
Hunched over in the middle of a sandy creek bed in Riverside State Park, 8-year-old Will Compton announced his discovery Wednesday morning.
“Hey, you guys, there could have been lava here!” the Seth Woodard Elementary student shouted. “Just look at this rock!”
Greyson Hatcher, 8, rushed over and picked up the rock formation from the sand.
“It’s igneous. Look, you can tell ‘cause it’s all holey,” Hatcher observed.
The third-grade students were part of a group from the West Valley School District’s Outdoor Learning Center that spent the morning hiking through the Deep Creek canyon for the culmination of a unit on geology.
Accompanied by their classroom teachers and teachers from the learning center, the “geologists” set out in search of the three types of rocks they have been studying in the classroom for about four weeks.
“So far I’ve seen sedimentary and igneous,” said Garret Smith, 9. “I’m still looking for metamorphic.”
As the pack wound its way single file through the canyon carved out by a flood thousands of years ago, it was hard to go far before hearing excited voices.
“Oh my gosh, look at that rock over there,” said Kristin Norman, 8. “It’s got a tree growing out of it!”
Nearby, another student was bending down to look at a granite rock.
“You can’t put words to this, it’s amazing,” said Jami Ostby, a teacher at the outdoor learning center.
“This is stuff they see in the classroom, and then all of a sudden they’re seeing evidence that it really does exist out here.”
The students join the 3,000 students annually that use the West Valley Outdoor Learning Center as a catalyst to become experts about Eastern Washington’s ecosystems and natural history.
They spend one day at the center in Millwood, before venturing out into the wilds in and around Spokane County to put what they learned to use.
The center is only four years old, and is booked solid nearly every day with teachers and students.
West Valley’s environmental education program was one of several programs highlighted recently in a report card on the status of environmental education throughout the state.
The report card, released by the Environmental Education Association of Washington, along with the Audubon Society of Washington and the State Department of Natural Resources, gave the state a D for its support of environmental education.
“Basically what they found is that many (schools) haven’t been using it,” said Tom Moore, director of West Valley’s Outdoor Learning Center.
At West Valley’s center, students have access to the district’s four-acre campus, which has a nature trail, a footbridge, classroom buildings and a hawk and owl sanctuary.
Students in the district also work with biologists and volunteers to track mule deer, map habitat, install barn owl nest boxes and raise hatchery trout.
Most of the lessons, like Wednesday’s geology lesson that used Deep Creek as a lab, supplement those taught in the regular classroom.
“When kids are out there, getting their hands dirty, the enthusiasm and interest in learning is more than apparent,” Moore said.
Moore, who is also the president of the EEAW, joined other environmental advocates two weeks ago in urging state lawmakers to increase funding for environmental education.
He says the report shows those students who have access to environmental education perform better on standardized tests like the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, the state’s answer to the No Child Left Behind Act, a federal law that sets the lofty goal of having every child proficient in reading and math by 2014.
They also get better grades, behave better in class and stay in school longer, Moore said.
It is a unique teaching tool because it encompasses all subjects – such as math, science, writing, social studies – and applies them to real situations, he said.
Based on a 2001 statewide survey by the Environmental Education Council, 87 percent of teachers or schools want environmental education as a curriculum choice, and only 60 used it, the report said.
Sue Dahlquist, a teacher at Seth Woodard, and her third-graders, were part of Wednesday’s group hunting for rocks in the forest north of Spokane.
“No matter how many rocks you bring into the classroom, they really can’t see until they get out here,” Dahlquist said.
“It’s exciting to watch them make the connection.”