During the past few weeks on our trips to Los Arboles (LAMS), we have introduced the students to the differences between climate and weather, used photo elicitation to visualize their perception of climate change in their community, played games to understand local food webs and how they are impacted by outside stressors like climate change, and planted eight oak trees on school grounds. Some of these lessons were more successful than others; we played the food web game on a day when we originally planned to plant trees, but were stuck inside due to a storm, which seemed to make the students restless. Over the past two weeks, CSUMB students developed five project proposals which we hoped to implement over the remainder of the semester, including a pollinator garden, a green wall, a berry garden, a walk/bike to school day, and a school sustainability audit. During our last visit, we pitched our ideas to the students, who then rated how interested they were in each one, and picked the top two projects they were interested in. I was a member of the pollinator garden group, which proposed planting native flowers to attract a variety of pollinators, creating illustrated plant markers, and building bee hotels. Written feedback from the LAMS students showed they were more interested in the pollinators themselves than learning about native plants, so we adapted our plan to include more hands-on projects, including painting hummingbird feeders and potentially raising butterflies from caterpillars. We plan to incorporate learning about how native plants and pollinators depend on one another, and how they are affected by climate change and other human impacts. The LAMS students are slowly warming up to us, though engagement remains mixed. My hope is that working on a project they expressed interest in will help increase their engagement and give them an opportunity to have fun learning and giving back to their community.
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During the Spring 2023 Projects in Environmental Education course, CSU Monterey Bay students will be collaborating with a class at Los Arboles Middle School. We will be developing and implementing sustainability projects with the students in order to increase their knowledge about climate change and empower them to take action. This directly relates to our goals of increasing environmental literacy and creating sustainable communities.
On our first visit, the students from Los Arboles played icebreakers with us, and then led us on a tour of their outdoor classroom and some of their favorite places on campus. Overall, they seemed unsure of us and reluctant to speak up, but I’m hopeful that they’ll grow more comfortable talking to us in future visits. I’ve worked with a lot of younger kids in my work as an Interpretive Student Aide, but this is the first time I’m collaborating with youth for a longer project. This is a really exciting opportunity to practice applying what we’ve learned about building sustainable communities. I’m hoping this process will help me continue to grow my communication and leadership skills. I’m interested in learning what the students already know about climate change and their local ecosystems, and I look forward to seeing what they have to teach us, too. I hope that the process of the students imagining and creating changes will help deepen their connection to their environment. Ultimately I hope we can make sustainability fun, and reinforce the idea that we all have the power to shape our communities and the planet for the better. |
AboutKris Rose's Capstone Blog, from Projects in Environmental Education, Spring 2023, CSU Monterey Bay. Archives |