Chimney Swift Homes

Linworth Alternative Program

Worthington, OH

High school students plan and construct a nesting tower for chimney swifts that frequent a communal roost in the school's chimney. Students study the natural history of chimney swifts through direct observation, research, and communication with experts around the world. After construction, students monitor nesting activity and contribute data to the North American Chimney Swift Nest Site Research Project.

Living on Earth Radio

Contoocook Valley Regional High School

Peterborough, NH

High School students research local environmental issues and produce radio programs to be broadcast on National Public Radio's "Living on Earth" show. Students interview local officials, experts, and citizens, and are trained to translate scientific evidence into "newsworthy stories" that inform the general public about local and global environmental issues.

James River Study

Roncalli High School

Aberdeen, SD

Students from six high schools in a South Dakota watershed conduct water quality tests along the James River and electronically share data with each other, university students, and with local and state agencies. University students post questions for students to research. Students conduct a fish survey, study the Native American heritage of the river, and learn water resources issues.

Urban Garden

Lackawanna Middle/High School

Lackawanna, NY

Students in Lackawanna, New York design and plant a school garden. Educators hope the experience of creating and caring for a garden counters the negative forces of substance abuse, violence, and truancy. Teachers integrate the project into math, science, language, and fine arts curriculum. A four-week summer program extends the project and provides a safe alternative activity for youth.

Yellowstone Adventure

Crowheart School

Crowheart, WY

Students from a one-room elementary school on the Wind River Indian Reservation visit Yellowstone National Park. Trip organizers hope to build an understanding of, and appreciation for, environmental preservation, and bridge the gap between the students and the tourists who travel through the students' community on their way to the park each year.

Fungi Map

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, NC

Volunteers make observations of 50 easily identifiable species of fungi during their hikes in the park. Park staff use visitor reports to better understand where and when these species of fungi can be found in the park. These programs focus on involving volunteers in hands-on learning while providing valuable data for actual park research projects.

Salamander Mark and Recapture Study

Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center

Purchase Knob, NC

This study looks at longevity, growth, and dispersal of five species of salamander. Volunteer high school and college interns live capture salamanders in the study area. Salamanders of a certain size are marked with an injected marking devise, weighed, and measured. Interns work with visiting middle school and high school groups to catch and study salamanders.

Cross-Rivendell Trail

Rivendell Interstate School District

Orford, NH

Through the CO-SEED Summer Institute, an interest emerges to create a 40-mile long trail that links the four towns comprising this school district. An advisory council is formed to plan the trail and integrate it into the school curriculum. The project attracts funding from both the states of Vermont and New Hampshire. The land is close to being secured for the trail, and multiple classroom initiatives have been implemented.

Urban Ecology Project

PS 101

New York, NY

Students are involved in all stages of design, construction, study, and maintenance of planter boxes, birdhouses and feeders, a weather station, and a vermiculture station for their urban school. Inmates at Riker's Island prison constructed planters. Staff from the Horticultural Society of New York's Apple Seed Program help design curriculum.

Footprints in the Desert

Oak Tree Elementary

Gilbert, AZ

Sixth grade students gather data on local flora and fauna, post their findings on the World Wide Biome Project website, and create digital field guides to be post on a class website. Students also study how the growth of the Phoenix metropolitan area has affected the Sonoran desert. They examine their personal water use, and how to incorporate sustainable practices into their daily lives.

School Yard Design Project

Monticello High School

Abernarle, VA

Students work with community organizations to create a master plan for their school grounds. They start with trail enhancement, parking lot bio-filter revitalization, outdoor classroom construction, and wetland system investigation. They create a vision for the property that integrate the interests of school and community

Wilderness Arts & Literacy

The Wilderness Arts and Literacy Collaborative (WALC) at Balboa High School

San Francisco, CA

Students in the Wilderness Arts and Literacy Collaborative participate in academic courses that use outdoor experiences as the integrating framework. Hiking and camping trips expose inner city, low-income students to wilderness areas they may never have visited otherwise. They connect these experiences back to students' city lives through projects such as habitat restoration at a neighborhood park, a school recycling program, and environmental education presentations to other classes.

Backyard Sanctuaries

Souhegan High School

Amherst, NH

Students research, design, and build "backyard sanctuaries" on school property, including bat and birdhouses and a butterfly garden. Students plan and finance the project after soliciting donations from local businesses. They produce brochures for self-guided tours of the garden, and present their work at an Earth Day symposium. Students collect wildlife monitoring data and send it to agencies such as Bat Conservation International New Hampshire Audubon Society and Monarch Watch.

Environmental Art Sculptures

Charles Wright Academy

Tacoma, WA

Middle school students bring together art, culture, and science to create ceramic sculptures depicting current environmental issues. Students research environmental problems, interview local businesses and community leaders, and then devise plans to symbolize their ideas. These symbols are used to create environmental art sculptures modeled after the totems of the Northwest American Indians.

Xeriscape Gardens

The Children's Kiva Montessori Preschool and Kindergarten

Cortez, CO

Preschool and kindergarten children work with teachers, parents, experts from a local nursery, and peer mentors from a nearby elementary school to landscape their school grounds using xeriscaping. Plans included butterfly gardens, composting, and educating the community about water conservation and wildlife.

The Power of Worms

Schoolcraft Learning Community

Students use worm bins to recycle lunchtime food waste into fertile soil. Students write a children's book about the life of a red wriggler, calculate reproduction rates of the worms, and create a play about soil organisms and decomposition. Students visit other elementary schools to share what they had learned, and use the soil to build community gardens.

Four Towns History Museum

Great Brook Middle School

Antrim, NH

Seventh-grade students create an in-school museum to tell the stories of Antrim, Bennington, Francestown and Hancock, New Hampshire. Students explore five core geographical concepts at a local scale to prepare them for studying more distant places. The following year, teachers coordinate exhibit development with the historical societies in the four towns.

"Living Machine" & Wetlands Restoration

EastConn Alternative Design Academy

Hampton, CT

Seventh- and eighth-graders learn how wetlands function through a service-learning project with the Department of Environmental Protection's Wetlands Restoration Unit. Students construct a "living machine," a self-sustaining, integrated, four-chambered ecosystem in which the waste from one chamber becomes the nutrients for the next.

Fellsmere Pond Exhibits

Beebe Environmental and Health Science Magnet School

Malden, MA

Students work with the local metropolitan parks department to design educational interpretive exhibits for an urban park. They develop a walking tour, accompanying brochure, and two Quests that lure local visitors to explore the pond and park. The Quests include artificial rocks crafted through the school's partnership with the local zoo. Students are also doing habitat restoration projects at the park.

Technical Science Writing Project

Great Brook Middle School

Antrim, NH

A local hardware store provides unassembled wheelbarrows to a local junior high school science class. The students put the wheelbarrows together, critique the assembly directions, and then write letters to the company indicating how they could make the directions more user-friendly. This synthesis of practical science and writing help the hardware store while improving student skills.

Snowmobile Trail Mapping

(Source: https://promiseofplace.org/stories-from-the-field/vignettes)