A
Desert Oasis:
Keystone Park and the Wetlands
Background/Context
A desert Oasis: Keystone Park and Wetlands is a semester-long,
engaged learning project that partners with New Mexico State University (NMSU)
preservice teachers and Gadsden Independent School District (GISD) sixth grade
students in an exploration of desert wetlands located in Southern New Mexico
and West Texas. This project integrates science, math, language arts, and
technology through a thematic approach. The preservice teachers in Mrs. Davis
class at NMSU will be collaborating with Mr. Ortiz' sixth grade students at
Desert View Elementary School to study the Keystone wetlands project to gain
an understanding of what wetlands are, their impact on our environment and
ways to preserve this precious resources.
Since Keystone Park and Wetlands have received much
media attention the last few months, it is a logical hook for the local communities
to study and to know their precious resource. The rationale of this project
is to provide NMSU preservice teachers a practical experience while the students
will gain valuable information about wetlands.
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Beginning/Getting Started
At a special assembly of six graders from Desert View
Elementary School, Mrs. Davis announces that they had been selected to assist
the Keystone Foundation. The students would be participating as Junior scientists
accompanied by several preservice from NMSU teachers. Their job would be to
inventory flora, fauna, reptiles, amphibians, and insects that make Keystone
Wetland their home. As well as do water and air samples. With all the media
hoopla about Keystone Wetland in recent days, the foundation knew about Mrs.
Davis working with students in wetlands back East and most recently this area.
Thus they requested her assistance. The kids had a very good picture of what
Keystone looked liked from the news media. Many of these kids pass by Keystone
with their parents on the way to Wally World, Peter Piper, or Mickey Dees.
The neat -o thing about Mrs. Davis is that she allowed the students to visit
a whole bunch of Internet sites on wetlands. She even has her own web site
dedicated to Wetlands. Kids were fascinated with the site, especially when
she helped them make a simple web site. She even brought her collection of
slides, videos, and specimens. Cooool on the specimens.
Mrs. Davis asked the students if they would like to help out Keystone Foundation.
The kids all yelled, "YES!" Typical six graders. They always have
to yell. Not one yell, but several. Humans!
Mrs. Davis also informed the students that a group of NMSU preservice teachers
would lend a helping hand. They would learn from the preservice teachers and
the teachers would learn from them. That did not faze them at all. These guys
are all pumped up and ready to go. I best stay away from them.
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Middle/In Progress
Mrs. Davis role here is to assist the students. Through
enthusiasm teaching and learning procedures, students are empowered to take
action and help conserve Keystone Wetland. The students had learned something
about wetlands from Mrs. Davis teachings. Students knew the three characteristics
that make up wetlands and the four types of wetlands. From the Internet research
and teachings from Mrs. Davis, the students set out to find answers to helping
out Keystone Foundations. They came up with the following questions:
What makes wetlands an important part of a desert environment?
Why should be we concerned about the preserving Keystone?
What's types of plants live in wetlands?
What types of insects, animals, and reptiles live in wetlands?
Students then broke into several groups to explore several aspects of the
environment at Keystone. They would be preparing a detailed description
of:
· Soil
· Water
· Waterfowl
The role of the teacher has now shifted to more of a direct guidance.
Mrs. Davis assisted the students in obtaining the proper apparatus for the
students to conduct their investigates. She made contacts at the EPA office,
local business people, local, state, federal, and even Fort Bliss Environmental
section. The students themselves went hunting on the Internet for testing
equipment.
Help also came from Texas Parks and Wild Life. Surprisingly, from an oddity
of an organization "Ducks Unlimited.' They assisted the students in
identifying the ducks. Once the students went out to the field, all specimens
were collected and bagged. Back at the school's make shift lab, specimens
were studied and cataloged. All material was then being turned over to the
Keystone Foundation.
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End/Culmination
Preservice teachers will gather information about oasis wetlands and develop
a plan for addressing issues that they anticipate will be of importance and
interest to sixth grade students. By working with sixth graders, they may
list a variety of research tools that are to be used throughout the project.
The students may choose to produce a database of waterfowl and provide evidence
that they have researched the local wetlands and decide on the best course
of action. Students' research may include the WWW, e-mail, word processor
and database software, a CD-ROM science program, and on-line subject matter
experts, under the directions of their student teachers. The report generated
by this project, presentation, and classroom participation are used to assess
student learning.
Field trip will facilitate the project by meeting on-site for activities they
have worked out through various communications, e-mail, videocam conferencing,
and/or other communications tools. The student teacher's role shifts to that
of facilitator and manager, acting as the on-site consultant and troubleshooter
to the various student teams. Student teachers will use a variety of research
tools throughout the project and work with the sixth graders in guiding students
through chat discussion on how to use technology in the documentation process.
Student teachers will give weekly mini-workshops on WWW, e-mail, water quality
test kits, digital cameras, scanners, word processor and database software,
web cameras, and scientists in the field. In turn they will be keeping a log
of student interactions which will help them learn how to design curriculum
for engaged learning projects. After these mini workshops for sixth graders,
three mixed teams of eight are formed, with each team for the web site. The
web site contributions like the waterfowl database, water quality tests, soil
samples, classroom participation, and student presentations are used to assess
student learning. The student teachers work together to ensure that each 6th
student will have the opportunity to be the lead for a week. These sixth graders
will be responsible for facilitating the work and communication. The results
of the students' study will be posted on the World Wide Web.
As one can see, this project can easily be a semester-long
endeavor. While assignments will be done in a timely manner as described above,
however some may take place over a longer period of time. The goals for this
project are twofold: 1) Students will develop an understanding of the wetlands
and their impact on the environment; 2) Students will continue to share their
findings with the class, local community and the Internet community through
their webpages.
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Created for the Fermilab LInC
program sponsored by Fermi National Accelerator
Laboratory Education Office and
Friends of Fermilab, and funded
by United States Department of Energy, Illinois State Board of Education, North Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium
which is operated by North Central Regional
Educational Laboratory (NCREL), and the National Science Foundation.
Credit: Special thanks to Kathee Terry for granting permission to use her
webpage http://inspire.ospi.wednet.edu:8001/curric/land/wetland/index.html
for activities and also permission to use images.
Credit: Special thanks to I-Shüan Warr for creating the wetlands logo
for her mom.
Also, special thanks to my team members, Michele, Albert and Ellen for their
encouragement and for our fearless facilitator, Chris, for her constant care,
feedback and wisdom.
Author(s): Shirley Sung Davis
School: New Mexico State Universities, Las
Cruces, NM
Created: March 1, 2001 - Updated: April 12, 2001
URL: /lincon/w01/projects/nmsuwet/scenario.html