Education Spotlight: All About Slough School!
Blog post by Thomas Meinzen, Program Associate, with Jennifer Starkey, Education Director
As we approach the end of a very strange school year, we’d like to share some stories and reflections from our Education Director, Jennifer Starkey. Jennifer has been leading the Council’s Education program, Slough School, for the past five years, and she’s done a lot in that time—leading field trips across the watershed, helping organize student-led restoration projects on school grounds, and giving in-classroom lessons about everything from water cycles and soil health to the particular species living in students’ neighborhood parks.
When last March rolled around, however, Covid-19 upended all of that. Field trips quickly became impossible, in-classroom visits turned to Zoom lessons, and engaging students in local natural areas turned into campaigns to get kids to turn on their cameras and tune into class from their bedrooms. It’s been a tough year for educators—and students and parents—everywhere. But it’s also been inspiring to see how teachers and students have adapted, learned new technology, and found ways to engage, connect, and grow despite the challenges of distance learning. As many schools reopen or prepare to reopen in the fall, I spoke with Jennifer about Slough School and the lessons she learned from this tumultuous year in education.
A page from one of Jennifer’s bilingual Slough School lessons with 5th graders at Rigler Elementary.
First of all, what is Slough School? What do you enjoy most about leading Slough School?
Slough School is the Columbia Slough Watershed Council’s Education Program. It has been around for about 20 years. The program works with schools to provide free environmental education programming to any school in the Columbia Slough watershed. The goal of Slough School is to reduce as many barriers as possible to connecting classes of students with the natural areas in their community, and to link science concepts with hands-on learning opportunities in the watershed.
Slough School includes umbrella content such as water chemistry, macroinvertebrates, habitat, and watershed science, as well as specialized lessons with our partners on local flooding issues (with Multnomah County Drainage District), groundwater curricula (with Portland Water Bureau), Vanport history, and more.
As Education Director, I’ve gained specialized knowledge over the past five years and can bring local information about the natural areas, habitat, and watershed dynamics of the neighborhoods where students live. The more I learn and experience working here, the more I can bring to students. My background is in art and environmental education, so I love connecting students to all the weird stories, creatures, and facts of the watershed.
My favorite thing is getting to meet the students and bringing fun lessons into their classrooms. I get to be an educator, but I don’t have to worry about all the same stuff that classroom teachers need to worry about; I get to focus on the specialized experience and bring new stuff (like aquifer models!) into a classroom that students will remember and be excited about. I also really like it when teachers learn new things and get excited too.
Finally, I like how Slough School is interdisciplinary and builds connections in a world where sometimes subjects seem very separated. Slough School emphasizes building community and making connections between the local environment and students’ learning and lived experiences.
How has Covid-19 changed Slough School and your work? What has it been like to be an educator when you can’t meet in person?
Before Covid-19, Slough School was about me going to a place and working with the class on a subject, then going on a field trip. We went from place to place and reached a huge number of students, which was great, but sometimes it felt a little rushed.
This year with Covid-19, student contact numbers have gone out the window a bit. Now my goal has changed to becoming a resource, being available for teachers if they want me and making the concepts super accessible and understandable through slideshows and videos. I still meet with some classes regularly over Zoom, which has been really cool, because I still get to interact with students on a regular basis.
What aspects of distance learning have been most challenging for you as an educator?
Sometimes the technology can be a big barrier, with a lot of trial and error. Younger students lack some basic technological skills like clicking on hyperlinks, which can make teaching via Zoom really challenging. However, it’s been a great opportunity to create online materials that can be used in the future—for example, on sick days or by teachers when I can’t be there. In that way, it’s opened up the flexibility of the content.
A Woodland Elementary student shares his animal habitat zine during Zoom class. Amazing cedar waxwing drawing, Elijah!
One challenge in making educational resources this year is that I don’t immediately know what will click with students without first trying out a lesson with them. Making recorded videos doesn’t allow you to refine your lesson over time and see what works, like you can do when teaching live to different class groups.
The fact that I can’t see so many students is also really tough. The raise-your-hand and classroom conventions are so different in each class and on each platform. Although sometimes frustrating, it’s really kind of funny how many technological things go wrong.
I miss seeing all the little pieces of students’ lives that they bring to school and can share in person. I miss holding those little moments of kids wanting to share their lives. On Zoom, it’s just difficult to have time for all those little moments of sharing. There’s so much humanity in the kids that I miss seeing.
What aspects of distance teaching have been most rewarding for you?
I get to see students in their homes, which has been really meaningful, heartwarming, and sometimes compassion-building. Sometimes there’s just hilarious stuff going on, like this 4th-grader who started lifting weights while in class. Other times you realize how much responsibility kids have at home. Once I was teaching for a high school class and only one student showed up, and that one student wasn’t responding, and I was a little frustrated. Then the student came back and said “Sorry, I just had to get the kids outside,” and I learned that she was taking care of six younger kids. I realized I was assuming things and that I needed a reality check that students are dealing with A LOT in this pandemic. School is just the tip of the iceberg of many kids’ actual responsibilities.
I love kids showing parts of their home lives, even if it sometimes interrupts our lessons.
In one of our first trail cam captures, a beaver chews down a cottonwood at Whitaker Ponds!
Are there any projects that have come out of these times that you’re excited about?
Last summer Joe Ferguson, a teacher at Alliance High School at Meek, started a trail cam project at Whitaker Ponds with me and a wildlife tracker to allow his online students to continue engaging with their neighborhood natural area. Although we were originally concerned that trail cameras might get stolen, we decided to take the risk and set up 8 wildlife cameras around the park. Joe goes out weekly to switch out the SD cards and upload the files, and Alliance high school students have been doing most of the processing and selecting of the footage. What they’ve captured is amazing—check out their videos on our Slough School page!
This is a great example of originally not wanting to do something because of risk, but then deciding to go for it and having a hugely rewarding project. I’ve created a video bingo from the Whitaker Ponds footage that challenges kids to identify local wildlife. This brings up a lot of great student questions that can lead to important lessons about native and invasive wildlife, ecology, and relationships in nature. It also gives students a chance to be right easily and feel good, which I don’t think is happening a lot in distance learning.
Students from the Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA) Many Nations Academy on a Slough School outing at Whitaker Ponds.
Other exciting collaborative projects have included working with Rosemary Anderson High School / POIC, a high school with a workforce development program in which students get paid for their time on a work crew. We’ve also worked with Yoko Silk from Portland Parks and Recreation and Harrison Layer and Annamarie Santos from Friends of Trees. Most of the work we do together is enrichment, combining habitat restoration with education.
How do teachers, parents, and students access Slough School Online? What resources are available there for them?
Go to columbiaslough.org/slough-school-online! There are lots of videos, lessons, bingo, animated slideshows, a really cool flyover of Fairview Creek, resources from Portland Parks and Bureau of Environmental Services, and more. Check them out!
Are you a teacher, parent, or student looking for education resources? Visit our Slough School Online page or contact Jennifer at jennifer.starkey@columbiaslough.org!