Saturday, May 23, 2009

Students get hands-on education

Mapping the Rio project arms youngsters with understanding of ecology

Gerald Garner Jr. El Defensor Chieftain Editor, ggarner@dchieftain.com

Alexis Rykken leads nearly 20 elementary school students into the heart of the Rio Grande bosque with the intent of letting them get their hands dirty.

Rykken — who heads the Mapping the Rio Watershed Education Project for the Friends of the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge — believes giving students a hands-on education about watersheds is critical to future viability of the entire ecosystem.

To that end, Rykken partnered with two kindergarten and a second-grade class at Parkview Elementary School to provide dozens of youngsters with an eight-week outdoor education. Students learn about the river — from the headwaters in the Colorado Rockies to the Bosque del Apache NWR — and about restoration and protection of this precious natural resource.

Included in their outdoor education were sessions centering around wetlands ecosystems, river ecology, aquatics, river restoration, water cycle, watershed models and learning about the scientific method, among other things.

While the classroom serves a critical role in the education, the real learning comes in the field. The field sessions provide students with plenty of intimate, hands-on contact with the biology and character of the Rio Grande.

Armed with field journals, binoculars, animal identification charts and boundless enthusiasm and energy, the students and Rykken head out to map their education regarding the river's watershed ... and perhaps some students' futures.

It's through this immersion-oriented education that Rykken and program participants believe students can gain invaluable insight into the interconnectedness between man and nature.

Second-grade teacher Preston White is one of three Parkview teachers whose classes participated in this year's program. Although it was his first year participating, he said the program's aim is fantastic and his students are benefiting from it.

"Giving these kids a chance to learn about the Rio Grande watershed using both classroom and natural, field models is great," White said. "It's helping them gain an appreciation of our bosque environment from its micro to macro ecology and to begin to understand what happens when nature is altered."

Rykken said one of the most important components of the field education is to get students to think of the river as something more than just a resource.

"We need to think of the river as life not a resource," Rykken told the second-grade students.

While some may question whether the important natural lessons taught by nature would be lost on such young students, Rykken knows that's just not the case.

"We must honor the voices of these kids because they get it," Rykken said.

Her confidence, it seems, is warranted.

During a May 12 excursion to Water Canyon, the Parkview second graders constructed a miniature watershed and experimented with altering the landscape surrounding the river.

Rykken then asked, "What can we learn from this experiment?"

"What we do in and around the river has an effect on its flow," one of the students answered.

For Rykken, it's epiphanies like this that make the program successful.

"When a student clicks — when you see the light go on in their head, it's such a wonderful feeling," Rykken said. "They begin to figure out their own sense of place and belonging in the world."

Rykken said she hopes the program will spark enough interest in some of the students to steer some of them toward careers involving watershed management.

If the past eight weeks is any indication, it appears the Rio Grande bosque is in very capable, albeit young hands.

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