For the last two years, 7th grade students in Lisa Shluger's bilingual science classes at Fuller Middle School in Framingham, MA, have taken on the role of scientists in the field. Every week in the fall and spring they record data from schoolyard trees for the Schoolyard Ecology Program at Harvard Forest. This program connects teachers and students with real science, real scientists, and real issues.
The data students collect at their field site is sent via an electronic spreadsheet to Harvard Forest, where it is published on their website as part of a study called "Buds, Leaves and Global Warming" (http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/museum/phenology.html).
This research is part of a long-term ecological study to find out whether the growing season of leaves in New England is getting longer due to climate change. Through this hands-on research these immigrant students are not only introduced to the concept of climate change, but also get exposed to the local environment, seasons, and wildlife. Students compare these natural resources and processes with examples from their home countries, maintaining pride in their old roots while setting down new ones here.
Ms. Shluger copresented results from the project, including photos of Fuller students, with Harvard Forest Schoolyard Coordinator, Pamela Snow, at this year's annual conference of the Massachusetts Environmental Education Society (MEES). Ms. Shluger plans to continue this study with future classes in order to maintain a data set from which long term patterns in the length of the growing season can be observed.
Meanwhile, the HFR Schoolyard program continued to attract a lot of attention: a major newscast in Boston WBZ featured our "Buds, Leaves and Global Warming" Schoolyard Ecology program, with Forest Ecologist/Fisher Museum Director, John O'Keefe and Tewksbury (Mass.) teacher Elaine Senechal's High School class doing the project at their field site; The Boston Globe had an article on recent Environmental Education awards given to a number of Mass. schools, including three that feature HFR Schoolyard projects.