School Experiences

by Licia Johnson, Naturalist

One of the most important programs here at the Center is our school-based environmental education programs.  As much as we can, we get schools to come to the Center for a full day of educational activities, but budgets do not always allow for this type of program.  Several years ago we developed the “Naturalist in the Classroom” program, where we take our programs to local schools.  This has given me an opportunity to educate hundreds of local students and make vital community connections.  

Naturalist, Licia Johnson, explores
 beaver ecology inside the classroom.

I wanted to highlight two experiences where I have worked with the Arbor Vitae-Woodruff School.  AVW school is an expeditionary learning school, which defined by elschool.org means this school “inspire[s] the motivation to learn, engage teachers, and students in new levels of focus and effort, and transform schools into places where students and adults become leaders of their own learning.”  AVW School’s mission statement:  The mission of the AV-W School where commitment to the child is first, is to ensure each student learns, dreams, grows, and contributes as a responsible citizen. This is accomplished by providing challenging diverse educational experiences , utilizing our natural setting and technology , taught by a dedicated staff in partnership with our entire community.  This is really a special school and we are honored to be a part of their vision for their students. 

First Grade Frog Expedition

In the spring of 2012, I was asked to come in and work with the first grade students on their spring frog expedition.  Each study came along with guiding questions and case studies.  I came into the school to not only teach the students basic information on frogs, but to also develop and assist of some type of fieldwork project that would take place off campus.  Under their expeditionary learning model, they try to frame their work away from school and great field work studies where students are active investigators.  I spent a day working with the students discussing frog adaptations, habitat, frog ID, etc.  Guided by the teachers’ goals, I then developed a treefrog monitoring project for the students.  We decided to install a simple passive trapping system at the local school forest.  This included putting basic PVC pipes upright in the ground to act as shelter for local treefrogs.  They are not trapped, but use the tubes as a protected, humid retreat during the day.   I joined the students for a morning of marking and installation of the pipes.  I then created a data sheet and frog ID sheet for the students to use on their subsequent visits to the school forest to check the pipes for treefrogs.  They also installed several pipes around their school.  They visited the traps a number of times throughout the last month of school, but were unable to document any frogs in the traps.  With any good research project, lack of documentation of critters is still valuable information!  Following the several month long expedition, the students were they asked to create products to show off their learning.  They created a frog life cycle booklet, clay frog that showed some specific physical characteristics of a species of local frog, and a diorama that demonstrated the knowledge of a frog’s habitat.  

Student's Frog Diorama

The project culminated with an evening presentation to family and friends where the students discussed their time learning about frogs and conducting the research project.  They then were able to show off their clay frogs and dioramas.  Being a part of such important educational opportunities is the best part of my job here at the Center; there is nothing better than seeing these students become interested and involved in the natural world around them, gaining a new appreciation for their local environment.  The school plans to make this an annual study.  The Discovery Center was able to provide my time and efforts at no cost to the school on the project thanks to our annual Fund-a-Wish donations that supports Citizen-Based Monitoring projects.  Thank you to all who donated and allowed this great program to come to fruition!    

Second Grade Beaver-cology

Students explore the beaver pelt.

October 2012 brought another visit to AVW school, this time with the second grade students and the topic of beavers.  Now these are the same students who I worked with in the spring of 2012 as first graders.  It is such a joy to work with students year after year, watching them grow and learn.  Of course I wanted to see if they were able to remember some of the information I taught them about frogs and to my amazement and delight they were able to recall the term ‘adaptation’ to describe something an animal has or does that helps it to survive.  I was so proud!!  I then had them make a connection between frogs and beavers; how they are the same, how are they different.  Our morning programs focused on beaver adaptations, lifestyle and impacts.  The students participated in a fun beaver adaptation dress-up activity along with exploring actual beaver artifacts that included skulls, pelts, and actual beaver castor.  As school budgets reserve less and less funds for these types of activities for students, these particular programs were partly funded by a generous grant to the Discovery Center’s environmental education program from Xcel Energy.  We would like to thank Xcel for their support of our programs and furthering our mission.