Start Date
3-7-2022 4:00 PM
End Date
3-7-2022 4:10 PM
Abstract
The departments of science, Natural Resources, and language arts of Alliance High School at Meek Campus (a Portland Public Schools alternative high school), in collaboration with the Columbia Slough Watershed Council (CSWC) and Burning Hearts Media, developed the Whitaker Ponds Wild! interdisciplinary wildlife ecology project during the 2020-2021 school year. When high school learning continued in distance-learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the fall of 2020, teachers and students from Alliance High School and community partners from the CSWC and Burning Hearts Media set up wildlife monitoring video cameras at Whitaker Ponds Natural Area in northeast Portland. Video cards were collected weekly throughout the school year and students analyzed videos and collected data on wildlife behavior and ecology in this unique Portland natural area. Students learned about the unique urban wildlife of this park (beavers, river otters, coyotes, raccoons, squirrels, rabbits, birds, etc.) and other wildlife of the Pacific Northwest. They created videos, presentations, and other creative projects and games with the data collected in the cameras. The project was truly interdisciplinary as students read the young adult novel, A Wolf Called Wander, studied various aspects of Oregon and Pacific Northwest ecology, and wrote papers and stories about the wildlife studied in the class. This novel project engages students in the learning of the urban ecology of their own city and helps students develop empathy for the wildlife living in their own neighborhoods. https://www.columbiaslough.org/blog/whitaker-ponds-wild-alliance-high-school-guest-post
Subjects
Environmental education, Conservation biology, Animal ecology, Wildlife biology
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/38015
Captions
Whitaker Ponds Wild! A High School Interdisciplinary Urban Wildlife Ecology Project
The departments of science, Natural Resources, and language arts of Alliance High School at Meek Campus (a Portland Public Schools alternative high school), in collaboration with the Columbia Slough Watershed Council (CSWC) and Burning Hearts Media, developed the Whitaker Ponds Wild! interdisciplinary wildlife ecology project during the 2020-2021 school year. When high school learning continued in distance-learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the fall of 2020, teachers and students from Alliance High School and community partners from the CSWC and Burning Hearts Media set up wildlife monitoring video cameras at Whitaker Ponds Natural Area in northeast Portland. Video cards were collected weekly throughout the school year and students analyzed videos and collected data on wildlife behavior and ecology in this unique Portland natural area. Students learned about the unique urban wildlife of this park (beavers, river otters, coyotes, raccoons, squirrels, rabbits, birds, etc.) and other wildlife of the Pacific Northwest. They created videos, presentations, and other creative projects and games with the data collected in the cameras. The project was truly interdisciplinary as students read the young adult novel, A Wolf Called Wander, studied various aspects of Oregon and Pacific Northwest ecology, and wrote papers and stories about the wildlife studied in the class. This novel project engages students in the learning of the urban ecology of their own city and helps students develop empathy for the wildlife living in their own neighborhoods. https://www.columbiaslough.org/blog/whitaker-ponds-wild-alliance-high-school-guest-post
