Kill Creek Planning Session

Today, September 26th, 2012 (at 12:45 pm) we gathered to to discuss our introductory exercise for the freshmen to get them acquainted to the subject of watershed ecology.

We talked in detail about what we were going to do to fulfill our major objective -introduction to the concept of watersheds and their health/composition. We created a strategy for what each teacher was going to do during the presentation. We took into account our students' characteristics and learning abilities. We discussed and designated which teachers would model the learning behaviors we want the the students to practice, and which teachers would do the modeling.

We discussed how we would proceed onto the next text to study and how we would approach it.

We examined and assessed our students' need for explicit modeling, and their emotional maturity, focusing on particulars about their fear of asking other students for help how they are unusually lacking in the ability of advocate for their own needs.

We then moved on to discuss our field trip to the Kill Creek watershed. Dr. Hotz detailed the people who would be leading the different areas of investigation, studying quality of water, animals.  We decided to incorporate a literacy piece involving reading a descriptive text about ecological matters, followed by students responding in a detailed descriptive piece about their surroundings, and capped off by a persuasive response to how to aid watersheds.

We will have students perform "geocaching," mapping, calculations of area, and perimeter, including trigonometry. We will examine a map of the Kill Creek watershed from ten years ago, and compare it with a modern rendering. We will also, study the wildlife, keeping focus mainly to this aspect.

Students will be tasked with studying distribution of various ecological elements, and make predictions about future conditions, thus enhancing students abilities to think in a more formal manner ( thinking about things in a subjunctive way- about things that they aren't actually seeing).

Julie asked about how to divide the activities the students would perform with the time we have available. We estimate establishing between eight to ten stations, with varying times -longer times for writing stations.

There will be representatives from KU, the EPA, the Schlagle library, and district offices, as well as the staff members of this PLC, an estimated twelve or more adults participating.

Lesley brought up that an exercise of this importance should have media representation. We discussed having yearbook staff or a responsible upperclassman cover this.

Lesley also mentioned the historical aspects of the location that may provide fruitful data for our study, namely the issues surrounding contamination of the area by the ammunition plant that once resided there, and how ecological concerns prompted the need create a "brownfield" whereby the ecosystem was allowed to reclaim the land, enabling natural processes to eliminate the industrial contamination.

We concluded that this project is well underway and progressing in a satisfactory way.