Learning and Teaching

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You may have noticed that updates to the Children of the Spills website have been few and far between.  This project is still important to me, and I'm still working to add more interviews, photos, and drawings.  I am also striving to find a medium worthy of these stories, a way to share them with a broader audience.

But, I also have become especially inspired to continue the momentum that began in classes throughout Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, the opportunity to educate young people about oil spills and being stewards of their communities and ecosystems.  In 2014, I helped the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council update the Alaska Oil Spill Curriculum.  Then, I was lucky enough to work with PWSRCAC to do outreach with the curriculum visiting communities along Kachemak Bay, Resurrection Bay, and Prince William Sound to teach students about energy, ecosystems, pollution, and stewardship and to demonstrate activities from the curriculum to teachers and community members.  I worked with pre-schoolers, I worked with high schoolers, and I worked with every age in between. We cleaned up mock oil spills, explored schoolyard ecosystems, and conducted energy audits at the school.

A favorite activity - for me, for students, and for teachers - was Oil Spill in a Pan. In this activity, groups of students work to contain and clean up an 'oil spill' (paint and canola oil) in a pan of water.  This pan represents the open ocean. Students work together to make a clean-up plan and purchase different materials for clean up and containment.  Each item - things like sponges, cotton balls, nylon netting, ropes, eye droppers, and spoonfuls of dish soap "dispersant" - has a specific cost, and every used item and container of oily water costs a certain amount to dispose of. Students are tasked with not only containing and cleaning up the oil spill, but also staying within budget. If any oil reaches the edge of their ocean pan, the task becomes more complicated: the teacher also adds about a teaspoon of oil to a pan representing a local shoreline ecosystem - sandy beach, mud flats, salt marsh, rocky shore, etc. which the students have to protect as well. For older students, extra challenges like weather elements (wind, rain, etc.) or supply shortages can be added.  At the end, students have an opportunity to reflect on what worked well and what didn't work well. Students brainstorm local shorelines that are similar to the ones in the simulation and talk about why those shorelines are ecologically, economically, culturally, and socially important.  Finally, there is a discussion about how difficult it would be to contain and clean-up an oil spill in real life, highlighting the need to prevent oil spills and other pollution in the first place.

Oil Spill in a Pan works because students learn firsthand about the difficulties of cleaning up oil spills.  They race against time and weather.  They work together, problem solve, find creative solutions.  There is frustration, disappointment, excitement, success.  They get their hands a little dirty, or soapy if they choose to use 'dispersant.'  This authentic learning experience is one they are likely to remember for a long time, and with it a lesson about the importance of working towards oil spill prevention and preparedness.

I am so lucky to have visited classrooms in Homer, Kachemak Selo, Seldovia, Seward, Whittier, Tatitlek, and Chenega Bay.  I learned so much from the students and teachers there about the unique communities, ecosystems, and human connections to land and water.  Through this I came to truly recognize the importance of authentic, place-based and culture-based science education.  And so, inspired, I enrolled in a graduate program at the University of Washington, pursuing a master's degree in science education. I am specifically focused on place- and culture-based science education in communities already affected or likely to be affected by dramatic environmental change.  I strive to weave together science, culture, and art as a way of building connections between students and the human and natural communities they belong to.  Together, we create a web of learning that extends to all aspects of their lives, allowing students to connect with objects, experiences, environments, and generations of people. In this way, students are encouraged to positively engage with the world around them, growing as stewards of both human and ecological communities.  Through these meaningful actions, students and communities both can become more resilient in the face of environmental change. Individuals are helped by helping their communities.

Indeed, this is a theme that emerged across interviews in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico: a simple and vital wish to be able to do something to help.  My hope, then, is to guide and empower students to discover ways in which they can in fact help their communities and ecosystems in the face of environmental change.