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In a three-part series, the Edible Schoolyard Project interviews the directors of sustainable agriculture andenvironmental stewardship programs at Center for Land-Based Learning . The first interview with Nina Suzuki, Program Director of Studentand Landowner Education and Watershed Stewardship (SLEWS),addresses the value of working with high school students and thelong-term goals of Center for Land-based Learning. SLEWS engagesCalifornia high school students in habitat restoration projectswith a focus on classroom learning, leadership development, andhands-on environmental impact. An introduction from Nina Suzuki I was introduced to the Center for Land-Based Learning (CLBL) whileI was studying Landscape Architecture and Landscape Restoration atUC Davis. For one of my classes, I was teamed up with CLBL andAudubon California to develop a farm conservation plan for theirheadquarters at the Farm on Putah Creek. Through that project I gotto know the organization and staff. I stayed in touch and wasreally excited when they had an opening for the Sacramento ValleySLEWS Coordinator position. In this position, I would be able toplan and participate in habitat restoration (with lots of partners)while facilitating student engagement and learning in the process. Edible Schoolyard Project: How did this program come about? Did itemerge from a need or a desire within the community? NS: The SLEWS program emerged from our existing experience, a need,and a partnership. Our first program, FARMS Leadership, gave us experience working with teachers to planyear-long, field trip based programs for high school youth. Theneed came from landowners, mainly farmers and ranchers, who wereinterested in reintroducing native habitat on their property butdidn t have the expertise or manpower to plan or install such aproject. And the partnership was with Audubon California , whose Landowner Stewardship Program was working with theselandowners to plan and implement habitat projects, but wanted toinclude an educational component. ESYP: Who is your target community and how large is it? NS: We target high school students, primarily sophomores, for the SLEWSProgram. About 700 students participate in the SLEWS program eachyear from our four SLEWS regions: Sacramento Valley, San JoaquinValley, Napa, and Sonoma. SLEWS also recruits and trains about 70natural resource professionals and college students as mentors eachyear. The program offers them the opportunity to share theirknowledge with high school students and gain experience inenvironmental education and habitat restoration. They help SLEWSmaintain a 5:1 adult-to-student ratio to ensure high qualityexperiences and restoration work, lead the same team of studentsfor all their field days, and connect high school youth to relatedinternships, majors, and careers. ESYP: Why does SLEWS work with high school age children? What isthe value of engaging high school students in habitat restoration? NS: There are very few experiential programs for high school students.Additionally, high school students are at the time in their liveswhen they are thinking about college majors and careers. The SLEWSprogram connects high school students with graduate students andnatural resource professionals, and teaches skills that a wildlifebiologist or habitat restoration planner or water quality engineerwould use every day. We hope to inspire these students to explorenatural resource and agriculture careers and infuse those careerfields with highly motivated, ethnically diverse young people.Another value of the SLEWS program is that the concepts we explorein SLEWS are in line with the California state science standardsfor high school biology. SLEWS is a way to teach those concepts ina real world, local setting that students connect with andunderstand. ESYP: How is the program structured? NS: Students participate in SLEWS for the length of their school year.SLEWS coordinators meet with the teacher and project team todevelop the plan for the year including restoration tasks andlearning activities that connect to classroom curriculum. Thecoordinator provides an in-class watershed presentation to preparestudents for their field experience. Students make three to five,all day field trips to their adopted restoration project. The tripsare spread out throughout the year, allowing for a variety ofactivities (since many are seasonal) and for students to develop aconnection to their site. Most of the student training happenson-site by our staff, restoration partners, and mentors althoughwe also take advantage of the opportunity to teach in the classroomto prepare students before coming out into the field. Each fieldday includes team building, training, restoration work, sciencelearning, and reflection elements. ESYP: What are the most popular activities and projects? NS: The most popular activity is planting trees and shrubs. There is agreat sense of accomplishment and camaraderie when you get togetherwith a group of friends and plant 300 trees in two hours. Studentstell us, The best part is looking back and being able to see whatyou ve done, that you ve made a difference. ESYP: How do you pick your restoration sites? NS: We use a rubric of criteria when we re looking at a new site. Theprimary considerations are: proximity to the school andcoordinator, potential for long term success, scale of the project,accessibility, ecological significance, diversity of tasks, andinvolvement of the landowner and restoration planner. ESYP: How is the program funded? NS: SLEWS is funded primarily through our restoration partners andlandowners who contract with Center for Land-Based Learning toinclude SLEWS students in the implementation of their restorationprojects. We are also supported by grants from state agencies,local businesses, and foundations. ESYP: Are there improvements that you wish to make to theprogramming? NS: We are always revising and developing new elements of theprogram with feedback from our participants and partners. Fromsurveys and other student and teacher feedback, we learned thatstudents got really excited about wildlife. So we now include morewildlife lessons that connect to the restoration work students aredoing. We are building up our kit of demonstration materials likeexample mammal tracks, skulls, and skins. Right now we areborrowing museum specimens, but eventually we d like to have ourown set of materials. We re also always trying to find new ways of connecting theselearning experiences back to students communities, andencouraging them to take action back at home to improve their localenvironment. We recently received a small grant from Cornell s Celebrate Urban Birds program to support Grant High School s student garden in NorthSacramento, provide native plants for birds in an urban setting,and have students gather data on urban birds as part of a citizenscience program of Cornell. These students were planting nativehabitat on a ranch in the foothills of the Coast Range for theirSLEWS project, and then they got to go back to their school andplant native plants to support birds right in their backyard. Wewould like to be able to do more of these Community ActionProjects with our SLEWS classes, but it takes a significantamount of planning and time from the teachers and our staff to makea meaningful project happen. ESYP: How do you measure success? NS: We evaluate success with students in the SLEWS program by trackingparticipation, engagement at field days, responses to writtenprompts at field days, and the pre- and post-program survey. TheCenter for Land-Based Learning has worked extensively with facultyat the UC Davis School of Education to develop effective evaluationmethods for our programs. The pre- and post-surveys were developedin collaboration with the UC Davis School of Education to assesschanges in student knowledge, attitudes, and actions over thecourse of the school year. The survey also captures studentactivities in their own communities, interest in post-secondaryeducation and/or careers in environmental science, and resourceconservation as well as interest in similar programs in thefuture. After each field day we evaluate the restoration and educationaccomplishments of the day as well as student engagement with inputfrom the project partners and teachers. This includes studentquotes that demonstrate student learning and attitudes toward theenvironment. Key indicators include: developing a connection to theland, seeing their potential to affect positive change andunderstanding the need for and effects of restoration. We recordthis information in our Coordinator Field Day Assessment, a toolCLBL used in a three-year research study with UC Davis to evaluateeffective experiential programming. ESYP: What do you find is the greatest value of land-basedlearning? NS: It amplifies student learning, brings concepts to life, makeslearning real and meaningful. It connects students to somethingbigger than themselves and opens them to a new world of careers andinterests. Most of the students in our programs are from urbanschools, and most of them have never set foot in a creek or puttheir hands in soil. I think the beauty of our programs is thatthey work on so many levels of engagement. They start at the verybasic level of getting people outside and exploring the wonders ofnature. They progress to teaching science, inspiring students totake positive action back in their own communities, and they launchthem on paths of higher learning. These experiences are relevant toall students even if they don t want a career in wildlife biologyor resource conservation we are all invested in clean water,air, and healthy food. Originally published on the Edible Schoolyard Project Stacey Slate is the deputy managing editor of Civil Eats. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as CO2 Fractional Laser Manufacturer , Multifunction Beauty Equipment Manufacturer, and more. For more , please visit CO2 Fractional Laser today!
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