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ENLARGE
Clark Tate, of the Tamarisk Coalition, rows a boat Tuesday for Pomona teachers learning about river ecology. In back are Aaron Russell and Janel Anderson.
Author Richard Loud coined the phrase “nature-deficit disorder” in his book “Last Child in the Woods” to describe what happens to young people who become disconnected from the natural world.
Loud links this lack of nature to rises in child obesity, attention disorders and depression.
Tuesday, Pomona Elementary School teachers spent one day of their beginning-of-the-year in-service week to go experience nature themselves — so they could better bring it to their students.
Thirty teachers became learners instead of instructors for the day by immersing themselves in the outdoors and meeting with Division of Wildlife staff, and National Audubon Society and Tamarisk Coalition members. Among other things the school teachers learned to identify birds and to measure the height of trees using a sexton instrument — which turned out to also be a geometry lesson, said Principal Emma Leigh Larsen.
Teachers also learned about tamarisk — an invasive non-native shrubby tree that grows along the Colorado River and throughout the West.
Before Tuesday, third-grade teacher Jennifer Cline didn’t know what a “baby tamarisk” looked like. By the end of the morning, the group of teachers had pulled about 2,000 young tamarisk trees growing along the Colorado River.
Pomona resource teacher Kathy Carlson is married to Tim Carlson, executive director of the Tamarisk Coalition, who, along with other coalition members, provided a lot of the teachers’ outdoor education for the day.
The Tamarisk Coalition is a nonprofit alliance seeking to restore riparian lands by removing the water-thirsty flowering trees. Tamarisks were imported to the United States in the 1850s from Eastern Europe and West Africa to use as ornamentals and to control erosion. Tamarisk spreads prolifically, however, crowding out native cottonwood and willow trees.
Around noon the teachers boarded six rafts and floated down a section of the Colorado River from Connected Lakes to Colorado River State Park in Fruita to learn river ecology. Four members of the Tamarisk Coalition and two volunteers paddled the boats.
Teachers immediately grabbed giant plastic squirt guns and soaked one another from their respective boats.
After all, learning should be fun, said several of the teachers.
After floating a while, the rafts pulled over to the shore of the Walter Walker Wildlife
Refuge, where rafters got out and Tim Carlson gave a talk about the importance of the wetlands area to endangered fish and other species.
Boatmen and women answered questions about the river, pointed out blue heron rookeries and stopped occasionally to “sweep” for tamarisk leaf beetles.
The beetles were imported from China and released in Utah four years ago, where land managers have seen success in combating tamarisk growth in several Utah counties. The beetles have also been released in portions of the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area.
Larsen said she didn’t know much about tamarisk until about a year ago when she started getting involved with the No Child Left Inside Act, new federal legislation authorizing major funding for states to provide environmental education both at school, and in nonformal environmental education centers, teacher training and the creation of state environmental literacy plans.
Larsen moved to the Grand Valley two years ago from the East Coast.
The environment is something “we fuse into our curriculum,” Larsen said. “It’s starting to become something that will be mandated under No Child Left Inside. It’s all part of learning about the state of Colorado and science.”
“If we’re teaching (students) to take care of the environment along with their science, it so much more meaningful,” said teacher Susan Kembel.
Reach Sharon Sullivan at ssullivan@gjfreepress.com.
Loud links this lack of nature to rises in child obesity, attention disorders and depression.
Tuesday, Pomona Elementary School teachers spent one day of their beginning-of-the-year in-service week to go experience nature themselves — so they could better bring it to their students.
Thirty teachers became learners instead of instructors for the day by immersing themselves in the outdoors and meeting with Division of Wildlife staff, and National Audubon Society and Tamarisk Coalition members. Among other things the school teachers learned to identify birds and to measure the height of trees using a sexton instrument — which turned out to also be a geometry lesson, said Principal Emma Leigh Larsen.
Teachers also learned about tamarisk — an invasive non-native shrubby tree that grows along the Colorado River and throughout the West.
Before Tuesday, third-grade teacher Jennifer Cline didn’t know what a “baby tamarisk” looked like. By the end of the morning, the group of teachers had pulled about 2,000 young tamarisk trees growing along the Colorado River.
Pomona resource teacher Kathy Carlson is married to Tim Carlson, executive director of the Tamarisk Coalition, who, along with other coalition members, provided a lot of the teachers’ outdoor education for the day.
The Tamarisk Coalition is a nonprofit alliance seeking to restore riparian lands by removing the water-thirsty flowering trees. Tamarisks were imported to the United States in the 1850s from Eastern Europe and West Africa to use as ornamentals and to control erosion. Tamarisk spreads prolifically, however, crowding out native cottonwood and willow trees.
Around noon the teachers boarded six rafts and floated down a section of the Colorado River from Connected Lakes to Colorado River State Park in Fruita to learn river ecology. Four members of the Tamarisk Coalition and two volunteers paddled the boats.
Teachers immediately grabbed giant plastic squirt guns and soaked one another from their respective boats.
After all, learning should be fun, said several of the teachers.
After floating a while, the rafts pulled over to the shore of the Walter Walker Wildlife
Refuge, where rafters got out and Tim Carlson gave a talk about the importance of the wetlands area to endangered fish and other species.
Boatmen and women answered questions about the river, pointed out blue heron rookeries and stopped occasionally to “sweep” for tamarisk leaf beetles.
The beetles were imported from China and released in Utah four years ago, where land managers have seen success in combating tamarisk growth in several Utah counties. The beetles have also been released in portions of the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area.
Larsen said she didn’t know much about tamarisk until about a year ago when she started getting involved with the No Child Left Inside Act, new federal legislation authorizing major funding for states to provide environmental education both at school, and in nonformal environmental education centers, teacher training and the creation of state environmental literacy plans.
Larsen moved to the Grand Valley two years ago from the East Coast.
The environment is something “we fuse into our curriculum,” Larsen said. “It’s starting to become something that will be mandated under No Child Left Inside. It’s all part of learning about the state of Colorado and science.”
“If we’re teaching (students) to take care of the environment along with their science, it so much more meaningful,” said teacher Susan Kembel.
Reach Sharon Sullivan at ssullivan@gjfreepress.com.
