Kettle Falls Elementary as a 21st Century School Expeditionary Learning Schools set an expectation for service


and authentic work. Kettle Falls Elementary teachers create expe- ditions that foster service in authentic ways.


Benchmark 3: B. Authentic Audiences 1. Products often meet an authentic need and have an audience and


purpose beyond families or the classroom teacher. 2. Some of the products are particularly motivating because in them-


selves they are acts of service. (Expeditionary Learning Schools Core Practice Benchmarks


p.13.) We are a Learn and Serve Grant recipient, which has helped


us focus on the service aspect of our expeditions. This grant gave teachers release time to write rigorous expeditions and make the community contacts necessary for authentic service. It also sup- ported the expedition through fieldwork and materials for a new expedition. We knew that this expedition was an outstanding opportunity


to educate our students in sustainable education. It meets many of Jaimie P. Cloud’s EfS Frameworks:


Responsible Local/Global Citizenship — The rights, responsi- bilities, and actions associated with leadership and participation toward healthy and sustainable communities. Students will know and understand these rights and responsibilities and assume their roles of leadership and participa- tion.


Healthy Commons — That upon which we all depend and for which we are all responsible. Students will be able to recog- nize and value the vital impor- tance of the Commons in our lives, their communities, and the places in which they live.


Multiple Perspectives —The perspectives, life experiences, and cultures of others, as well as our own. Student will know, understand, value and draw from multiple perspectives to co-create with divers stakehold- ers shared and evolving visions and actions in the service of a healthy and sustainable future locally and globally.


A Sense of Place —The strong connection to the place in which one lives. Students will recognize and value the interrelation- ships between the social, ecological and architectural history of that place and contribute to its continuous health. (Cloud, p. 172-173.)


The North East Washington Forestry Coalition (NEWFC)


agreed to partner with Kettle Falls Elementary School. This expedi- tion reaches each of these components of Cloud’s framework. It is the basis of an expedition with an authentic purpose, service, purposeful fieldwork, multiple perspectives and rigorous content.


Kettle Falls Elementary Bangs monitoring project Three KFE classes will be engaged in a hands- on learning


CLEARING 2010


experience that includes in-class preparation and learning and fieldwork designed to teach them about the life cycles of natu- ral systems, sustainable resource management, and community collaboration. The project will include wildlife, tree, and plant monitoring within the Bangs Mountain Wildland Urban Interface project on the Colville National Forest, as well as presentations and instruction from school and community experts in the field and in the classroom, including members of the Northeast Washington Forestry Coalition. The students will work with the Coalition to complete a final report in the form of a PowerPoint presentation, documenting their monitoring work and educational experi- ence with photos and written reporting. The final report may be posted on the Coalition’s web site, and a final press release may be prepared for local newspapers to share the outcome of the project with the broader community. Derrick Knowles, Education Outreach, NEWFC. NEWFC is a local organization that believes in demonstrating


the full potential of restoration forestry to enhance healthy forests, public safety, and community economic vitality. Because Kettle Falls is community that relies on the timber industry to survive, we wanted to create an expedition that would have many view- points. We felt that NEWFC would have the multiple perspectives within the organization that would make our study to compelling to students and community members, since NEWFC is comprised of members who come from the timber industry to those in Con- servation Northwest. Our students are seeing that there is not one “right” answer to their question of “What makes a healthy forest?”


Kettle Falls Elementary fourth grade expedition: the stories tracks tell


Case Study One: Indicator Spe- cies of Bangs Mountain


Our Learn and Serve


Grant gave a team of six staff members the opportunity to participate in a SEA (Service, Education and Adventure) training this fall. This ad- venture included learning to track with Tom Murphy of Edmonds Community College and the LEAF (Learn-n-serve Environmental Anthropology Field) school. This so engaged the teachers that we were de-


termined to give our students the same opportunity. Murphy was able to create an alterna- tive winter course that brought 12 college students to Kettle Falls for a week. During that time, the LEAF school taught the students how to recognize tracks and gaits of our local animals. The focus was on five animals: whitetail deer, turkey, snowshoe hare, lynx and coyote. These animals were chosen with help from the Forest Service because of their status as indicator species for the Bang’s Mountain area. Students spent time in the forest that week, learning to track, photograph tracks, and measure tracks. They also learned to set trail cameras along trails in order to capture photos of the elusive animals. Students from Kettle Falls High School Wildlife class with


teacher Jono Esvelt participated in each of these activities sup port- ing the fourth graders throughout this expedition. They also took on the task of writing “field guides” for the fourth graders to use


www.clearingmagazine.org/online Page 9


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