Students Conduct Carnivore Studies at the Learning Center

On a sunny fall day, 56 sixth through eighth grade students conducted field studies on carnivore habitat in the area around the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center. What makes this group of students different from all the other middle-schoolers who have done similar studies at Mountain School? These kids attend Evergreen Montessori—in Colorado.

This school recognizes that time spent outside the classroom walls is just as valuable as time spent learning in the classroom. Because of this, all students go on field trips once a month, sometimes venturing to other states or climbing to the tops of Colorado mountains!

The carnivore variation of our long-standing Mountain School program is an inquiry-based curriculum that allows students to come up with their own research question, hypothesis, and study methods. At the end of their time here—we offer both three- and five-day programs—each research group presents their findings at a symposium.

At this point you may be wondering how we are able to pull off real scientific studies with 12 to 14 year olds in such a short period of time. The magic answer is that we get them excited about science.

The Curious Lives of Carnivores (and Mountain Schoolers)

by Colby Mitchell. 

Throughout the seemingly limitless wilderness of the North Cascades, life sustains itself in unimaginably diverse ways.  This notion conjures a sense of wonder in all who pause and consider the life of a bear, a coyote, a wolf, or a cougar. 

On March 28th, sixth grade students from Villa Academy in Seattle arrived at the North Cascades Institute’s Environmental Learning Center and began to contemplate the mysterious carnivores that call these damp forests and jagged peaks home.  The students’ minds came alive with curiosity as soon as they set foot into the woods.  “What does a cougar eat and can it be found here?”  “Would a bear be able to find a place to overwinter in this forest?” “What could have left these claw marks on this tree? 

As part of North Cascades Institute’s Carnivore Curriculum students are tasked with gaining a better understanding of the lives of carnivores in the northwest and, in turn, assessing if the area around the learning center would make good habitat for their study animals.  This task is made slightly more difficult given that the subjects of these studies live secretive existences and are rarely seen face to face by even professional wildlife biologists.  But that’s what makes this experience authentic. 

 Students review scientific literature for their carnivore study.

After investigating the habitat requirements of Cougars by reviewing some scientific literature, the ‘Villa Academy Cougar Research Team’ set out to perform their own field study.  That afternoon, seven young scientists searched for deer scat and measured the availability of stalking cover.  Just like their professional counterparts, these students creatively devised a way to see this land through the eyes of a large predator.  Their vision was keen. 

Using binoculars to make observations on the trail with graduate student Jacob Belsher. 

While walking from one transect location to the next our team paused, hushed by a student leading the group along the Sourdough Creek trail.  His vision had zeroed in on motion downslope of the team.  In a clearing two deer browsed cautiously.  With little prompting the team took to the task of documenting the occurrence and even focused on determining what exactly these deer were choosing to eat.  These observations served as great fodder for discussion as the group poured over their data that afternoon. 

Maybe watching deer graze on the new growth of shrubs or counting scat along transects is a few steps removed from the romantic idea of researchers stalking large predators and observing their every move.  This certainly isn’t the vision of carnivores we get from watching nature documentaries.  But there is no doubt in my mind, nor a doubt in the minds of these students, that this is science.  

In leading photo, students discover douglas squirrel middens. All photos courtesy of the author. 

Friday Harbor Students Find Creepy Crawlers

by Alex Patia.

Friday Harbor 6^th grade students arrived Wednesday last week to a chilly but beautiful late autumn day here at the Environmental Learning Center. The big leaf maples (Acer macrophyllum) are mostly bare now and their bright yellow leaves now decorate the ground covered with leopard-like dark dots created by tar spot fungus (Rhytisma punctatum). Whenever the clouds clear the surrounding mountains Sourdough, Ruby, Pyramid and Colonial become visible and reveal a snow line creeping lower and lower in elevation. It feels as though it shouldn’t be too long before the snow finally sticks down here too and the Lake Diablo area is transformed into a winter wonderland with snow coated Douglas firs and white hills.

My trail group, the Lynx, were already making great observations their first day, noting changes from dry Lodgepole pine forest up by Bust Brown field down to the comparatively lush riparian forest alongside Deer creek. During an “Each-One, Teach-One” lesson students learned from and taught each other about various types of water quality tests, environmental factors that effect riparian health and how numbers of macroinvertebrates (animals without backbones visible to the naked eye) can tell us about water quality by whether or not they are pollution tolerant or pollution intolerant.

Students started off their second day developing a question related to water quality, using the scientific method, which they could research out in the field. My group was interested in finding whether or not dissolved Oxygen (DO) and pH were tied at all to how many benthic macroinvertebrates could live there. Their method involved each student looking under 5 cobble (fist sized) rocks to find and collect macroinvertebrates, or as we dubbed them “macros”. After looking at a map of the area students decided to conduct research at Fawn and Sourdough creeks.

A trail group at work on Fawn Creek. 

At Fawn creek students were having trouble finding macroinvertebrates at first, but upon closer inspection many of the rocks they had collected had some well-hidden macroinvertebrates moving about. The most visible were little worm-like creatures that inched about like leeches, which made some of the students a little uneasy about reaching into the water, but the arrow-shaped creepy crawlers turned out to be planarian or flatworms (Class Turbellaria). Students were puzzled by some mysterious empty cases made up of very tiny pebbles, and as they wondered where they came from some students noticed that when probed a creature’s head would wiggle out one end of the case and wave it’s legs as if to complain about the disturbance. Using the dichotomous key in their field journals the students came to the conclusion that these were the case-building larvae of Caddisflies (Order Trichoptera). The pH test showed the streams water was a neutral 7 but the DO test did not end up working, too many air bubbles may have been the problem.

Trail groups examine macroinvertebrates using ice-cube trays for collection. 

At Sourdough the only macroinvertebrates collected were Caddisfly larvae, which once again were difficult to spot looking like just tiny clumps of gravel at first and about half the time these cases were no longer occupied. Part of this lack of macroinvertebrate diversity could likely be that just a few weeks ago this creek was completely dried up. Once again the pH turned out to be neutral and students opted to skip the seemingly fickle DO test.

Back at the microscope lab students took a closer look at the macroinvertebrates they had collected. One macroinvertebrate collected from Fawn creek was too small to identify earlier but under the microscope turned out to be a Fishfly larva (Order Megaloptera), a predator with a menacing pair of mandibles- when viewed through a microscope. Students were curious to see if this Fishfly larva would try to eat a flatworm so we placed them in the same dish. The Fishfly did indeed try to bite the flatworm but the much larger flatworm pushed the larva out of it’s way after a brief albeit dramatic struggle.

Poking around looking for various creepy crawlers from amphibians to macroinvertebrates has always been my favorite past time. Most people I hike with quickly grow tired of waiting as I search under each and every accessible rock or log trying to find these seldom seen or appreciated creatures, but the students from Friday Harbor were just as excited as I was to find out what was lurking under each rock. Thank you Friday Harbor students for being willing to get cold, wet and muddy in the name of science and exploration! I hope you will visit the North Cascades again but don’t forget there are many places to explore right in your own backyard where there are rock and logs with all sorts of creepy crawlers hiding under them waiting to be found!

Photos by Jessica Newley. 

Watershed Explorations with Soundview School

Soundview students present their field investigation findings at the Water Symposium.

by Chris Kiser.

The past week of Mountain School was full of Watershed and Water Quality Studies! 23 Soundview students from Lynnwood grades 6th - 8th arrived Monday morning ready to explore and study the streams and water bodies in the Upper Skagit River watershed around the Environmental Learning Center.

Learning on the first day centered around developing an understanding of watersheds and the various biological, chemical, and physical dynamics that contribute to overall water movement and stream health. Students were introduced to the idea of inquiry and scientific field investigations, spending solo time carefully observing, recording, and comparing lifezones with different water influences in their field journals.

Students spent the entire second day developing questions about various aspects of watershed dynamics in the North Cascades ecosystem and conducted their own field investigations in order to draw conclusions from their research. Using a variety of field tools, Soundview students tested such chemical parameters as pH levels, dissolved oxygen, water temperature, or turbidity. Some student groups chose to focus their research on exploring the populations of benthic marco-invertebrates living in different stream habitats, while others conducted observational studies exploring the riparian vegetation, canopy cover and overall stream and sedimentation flow.

On the third day, students gathered together to share their findings in a public symposium on Water in the North Cascades. All groups demonstrated a remarkable understanding of the inter-relationships between a variety of different parameters affecting water movement and quality, evaluating their findings and suggesting ways to improve their studies in the future. 

All student data was added to a comprehensive database compiling Mountain School student research in conjunction with long-term Park Service data of the area. Thank you Soundview students for your eager scientific inquiry into the watershed dynamics of the North Cascades and for contributing to Park research in this important field!

Understanding Connection and Community

by Colby Mitchell.

On a dreary September morning a team of 6th grade students from Seattle's Westside School upend cobble in Deer Creek while searching for macro-invertebrates - living clues in the mystery of this habitat's health and the quality of the water cascading downstream. Their giddy grins and eager body language belie the soggy impediments to learning that characterize Pacific Northwest weather this time of year.

Weeks later, on a crisp October afternoon, seven 5th grade students from Bellingham's Happy Valley Elementary grapple with the concept of a watershed while scanning the snow encrusted peaks which ensnare Diablo Lake. Narrating the life of a raindrop, they trace its course from cloud to ground to river and eventually the sea. Participants delight in the chance to imagine water flowing through their world and passing places they may never go.

As an educator and lifelong science enthusiast I am quick to assign my own value to these experiences and the concepts they explicate. For one, these are classroom lessons come to life. I can recall cartoonish diagrams illustrating watersheds projected from transparencies onto my 5th grade classroom wall, but these children skip rocks on the water of Diablo Lake and then, when they leave, gaze out the window of their bus at the same water as it runs the Skagit River toward Puget Sound. Similarly, the 6th grade students from Westside School will spend an afternoon chasing dragonfly nymphs around with a microscope lens while my memories of macro-invertebrates, like the memories of many youth, are seen through the warped glass of a specimen jar.

Apart from the transformative nature of these place-based experiences, there is a deeper value in the concepts that we, as instructors, strive to impart to participants. Ideas like watersheds and ecological connectivity are stepping-stones to the broader skill-set of systems thinking. Understanding a place and its connection to other places is a mental exercise whose resultant fitness is transferable to an ever broadening set of challenges looming large on our shared horizon.

On the last day of each Mountain School session participants engage with the big ideas of Community. By this point the concept is far from foreign, as each individual has already explored the complexity of Northwest foodwebs and other interdependent systems. What separates this culminating foray into Community from previous learning is the place of the Individual within the system. The question of where and how you connect to the larger world is one each of us wrestle with in our lives and, in many ways, how we answer shapes the way we create identity for self and community.

There are many laudable audience transformations we strive to make during a single Mountain School session. Participants leave with a deeper knowledge of the ecosystem, more comfort in spending time outdoors, and stronger science literacy, but I personally ascribe the deepest value to an individual leaving with a newfound ability to see the connections between things which, until then, seemed so far apart. This is the seed from which deep understanding and lifelong stewardship will grow.

This article is cross-posted to the Chattermarks Blog. 

Leading photo by Jessica Newley.