Each fall and spring Mt. View Elementary School outside Corvallis, Oregon, puts on a Wetland Discovery Days.  The school is lucky to have a four acre natural area attached to their school grounds and the administration, staff, and parents feel it is important to get all their students outdoors to experience it firsthand on a regular basis. 

Stacy and Jody from the Institute for Applied Ecology, Ecological Education program help guide the students in a restoration project during this event. 

Students learn about the local wetland ecology and why their work in a restoration project is important.  For the fall, K-4 grade students learned about camas and its local use by Native Americans.  IAE ran the station where students worked with partners to plant camas bulbs. 

At a second station students learned about wetland soils and made field journal entries to practice their literacy skills.  Fifth graders worked on a science inquiry project that will continue over the school year.  The fifth grade direct seeded lupine along transect lines. 

During the winter they will grow lupine in pots to be planted out in spring.  Students will be comparing germination rates, as well as monitoring survival from the project in previous years. 

As students participate from year to year it is fun to see their connection with what they planted last year or to hear them talking about the time they got caught out planting in the hail storm two years ago. 

All these experiences make a lasting impression, instilling a sense of place.  Even the hail storm leaves them with a sense of how resilient they are!

For more information, contact Jody Einerson at jody@appliedeco.org