Environmental Ed Update
Oracle’s Mountain Vista School. Photo: Homes.com
Updates from this past month:
In November I hosted training sessions for those interested in helping with the environmental education program. Attendees included a mix of volunteers who have worked with Oracle's education program before and others who are new to the program. Topics covered included: basics of interpretation and environmental education; sessions on the ecology, geology, and history of the park; and in-depth run throughs of the two program offerings. Kudos to Michael Bain, Sinda, and Tom Buckley for their help with the training. I am excited to have made this step in getting the education program running again!
We have started the collaboration on a wildlife camera lesson with Mountain Vista K-8!
I had my first classroom visit and presented to the two 6th grade classes on the science of wildlife cameras: how they are used, information that can be gathered from wildlife cameras, and basics on how they work.
Thank you Friends for helping to support the lesson by purchasing some items to make sure the wildlife camera is secure!
The plan going forward is to place a wildlife camera on the school property and have students gather data on what animals are around. Some goals of the program are to help students get a feel for who their (animal) neighbors are and empower them to see themselves as scientists.
I sent in an application with the Tucson Festival of Books to (hopefully) have a table in their Science City as Arizona State Parks & Trails. I proposed we would have a space focused on connecting parks and public health - what access to parks and nature can do for human health and wellness. We should find out in the next few weeks if we will be attending.
I have been going through a large bin of old thank-you letters sent by students. It has been really cool to reach through the positive comments from the students and hear about their experiences. It just reminds me how important this program is and makes me so excited for the future!
Looking forward:
I am sending in an application to be a part of an environmental education certification program. If chosen, it will be a year-long course that will develop skills and capacity to provide high quality environmental education based on nationally set standards. They only choose 10 participants each session, so fingers crossed!
We have an Odyssey program for 6th graders coming up at the end of January, so I am working with the teacher to prepare for their field trip. This trip will look a little different from the usual Odyssey layout, but I am looking forward to trying something new.
Speaking of upcoming programs, I just nailed down dates for an Adventure program! That will make 4 scheduled field trips this upcoming spring. One group is returning from last spring, the other 3 have not been out for a field trip with us before. I am happy to see there is interest and the EE program continuing to grow!