Celebrating Another Wonderful Mountain School Season!

Fall is turning quickly into winter here in the mountains as we reflect on another wonderful Mountain School season this fall. We are grateful to all of the students, teachers, and chaperones who journeyed up the Skagit to visit us and spend a few days in the North Cascades over the past three months. Here are a few highlights from teachers on their Mountain School experiences. Thank you all!

Students from Darrington dance and learn about the water cycle at the beach with Pyramid Peak in the background.

"The greatest value of Mountain School was getting to see kids make new friends, grow as learners, and bond as a group. I love the chance to get to know my students outside of the classroom!"

"I saw my students in a special light. Those who find traditional classrooms confining were able to learn with few physical restrictions - so much joy!"

"I feel like the world really got bigger for some of the kids."

"This program gets kids out to the wilderness who would otherwise never have that experience. For those kids who already have a connection to the park, it strengthened their affinity for nature and helped put learning into such a real world context."

"The greatest value of Mountain School is spending so much time outside. There is no better teacher, especially with motivated, wonderful leaders modeling respect for nature, fitness, and learning."

Photos by Zach Montes. 

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. 

Mountain School Stewardship

by Julie Stone.

Hello friends of Mountain School! If you haven’t yet heard, we’ve started a new Mountain School Stewardship program in Bellingham. After a class has come to Mountain School, we meet them at a city park within walking distance of their school to do a service project. The students revisit what they learned at the Environmental Learning Center, explore the nature in their backyard, and learn about their role as stewards of the forest. So far, we’ve had trips with Whatcom Hills Waldorf and Lowell, both with great fall weather, a lot of hard work and lots of fun. Here is an update from our latest trip with Lowell.

First and foremost, I want to thank our grads, Kiira, Susan, Matt and Ashley for coming. They did an amazing job organizing the kids, keeping track of their groups, doling out little educational tidbits, and keeping the kids motivated while pulling blackberries and mulching. I think they deserve the “making blackberry removal fun” merit badge. Its a skill. Plus, they’re just plain cool. Thanks again you guys! We’ve also been working with Rae, the Volunteer Coordinator with Bellingham Parks and Recreation. She has invaluable tips of the trade, like how to doggy-dig mulch into a bucket and how to drive a pickup filled with blackberry vines with the equipment for 35 volunteers stacked on top. She’s amazing. Join us next time for when she saves the world!

Matt works with students to figure out which blackberries to tackle next. 

Rae's truck loaded up after our workday.

Our first class arrived on a frosty morning at Lowell Park after a cold walk from their school. I start out by getting the kids talking about Mountain School and reminding them what a plant needs to survive. We played an invasive plant game that I aptly named “Invasive Invasion.” Its nearly impossible to say, I spent the whole day trying. The game emphasized the lessons the kids learned about what plants need (air, sun, water and soil), while letting them run around like crazy people. I introduced the idea of stewardship and our role in the fight to keep our native plants alive, which they accepted with the gusto only children can muster for clipping blackberries. Ah, the magic of youth…

Rae split the kids up into work groups and we tackled the huge patch of blackberries in front of us. The groups worked together to clear around native plants that had been planted in previous years. Each graduate student had their own work group and area to work in. We had two overlapping classes, with about 60 kids throughout the day. All those hands made for light work while we cleared over 200 square feet of blackberry. Both classes had a great time, happy to be outside and see their Mountain School instructors. At the end of the day, we were all proud of the amount of progress we had made. Way to go Lowell!

 Lowell park before all of our work.

 The park after all of our work!

Thanks again for supporting Mountain School and all of our programs at the North Cascades Institute. Look for us in a park near you!

This article is cross-posted on the Chattermarks Blog. 

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!