Students get hands dirty in outdoor learning

Getting kids noses out of books and their feet and hands into the wide world is the key to teaching science. That's the message some local teachers and students brought to the McDowell County Board of Education Monday night.

The board heard a report from West Marion faculty about their school's progress in emphasizing math, science and technology instruction.

West Marion Elementary is making the big push to emphasize math, science and technology among the school's students. Allyssa Kanipe explained her role as the school's technology facilitator.

"My role, basically, is I get my feet wet," she told the board. "I go into the classrooms and help plan projects and design lessons."

She had several items the kids produced in conjunction with their lessons, including brochures that touted what the sixth-graders learned in their studies of South American culture.

She also had a collection of trading cards featuring the animals of Hong Kong created by second-graders. She said the kids are typically very excited about scanning their artwork and manipulating it in digital format on computer to produce printed documents like the cards, posters and more.

Genny Buchanan explained how many doors she was able to open thanks to a grant from Burroughs Wellcome Fund. The grant, she explained, supported work to bolster science enthusiasm and awareness of careers in science. All the projects are "hands on" she said, and conform to the state's "standard course of study."

Prompted by evidence that girls and minorities are less likely to pursue technical or scientific fields of study and work, she makes sure that girls and English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students are well-represented in the projects.

To demonstrate some of their results, they brought along students Kendall Bollick and Melissa Wrangel. The girls spoke in detail about some of their lessons and demonstrated a grasp of the method of scientific inquiry that was truly impressive.

"When I grow up, I want to be a surgeon," said Wrangel.

Renata Crawley spoke of her class's project of making sundials and tracking how the ancient, primitive time-keeping devices work perfectly provided they are regularly recalibrated for the date, as the angle of the sun changes with each calendar day.

Tracie Ramsey provided the board with details about the kids' study of foreign cultures and nations, leading up to Friday's International Fair, to be held this year at P.G. Elementary, beginning at 4 p.m.

Assistant Principal Crystal Hamby detailed the activities of the school's Gardening Club. The group now operates a green house and will sell landscape and food plants they have grown to raise money to support its activities. The club donates unsold plants to the McDowell Senior Center for beautification.

The club has prospered and learned a lot, she said, thanks to the help of McDowell's master gardeners and Dan Smith of the Cooperative Extension.

Not all the lessons are indoors or even on the West Marion campus. On Wednesday, the school's fifth-graders took a field trip to Lake James to spend the day with scientists from Muddy Sneakers. Based out of Hendersonville, Muddy Sneakers guides kids in hands-on nature study.

Skies were overcast and the air was cool Wednesday, but the rain stayed away so the kids didn't get their sneakers literally muddy. Under the guidance of Muddy Sneakers's Sarah Chesnutt, the kids explored the natural habitat around Lake James.

Student Brooke Marshall recounted some of what she had learned.

"We learned about the vegetative buffer," she said, explaining that the term refers to the presence of plants and dead or fallen plant material that slows the flow of water and prevents water from washing out the dirt.

The lesson was demonstrated both by observing the existing vegetative buffer and by creating one on the spot. The kids poured water out on the sand and watched the effect it had in carving a channel to the lake. Then they scattered leaves and sticks and tried it again.

"The water flowed slower and that slowed the erosion," Marshall said.

Chesnutt stopped the group to examine a hemlock tree, and she showed them how to identify the signs of wooly adelgid infestation, which gave her a chance to introduce the concept of invasive species and the havoc they can wreak for native species.

Her lesson them led into a discussion of the importance of phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen, and the effect the absence (or overabundance) of each would have on plants. More than theory, she and the kids dug up soil samples and inspected them for quality.

It's never certain how long the kids will retain the lesson, but several were able to explain the concepts to The McDowell News in their own words at the end of the field trip.