CMC creates middle-school programs

by Brenda Porter

The Alliance Project, an initiative of the Tier II of the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District in the Denver Metro Area, has provided funding for three CMC educational programs for middle school students, “A Sense of Place at the foot of the mountains,” “Experience the Burn,” and “What is Wilderness.” The three programs are part of an ongoing mission to provide mountain education for youth.

A sense of place foot of the mountains

Three minutes is a long time. A long time to sit in silence without giggling, talking, or nudging a friend. Even one minute can drag into eternity—unless one is absorbed by the surroundings. For sixth, seventh, and eighth graders from Platt Middle school in Aurora, slowing down and listening was a new skill to develop. The children sat on the bank of Clear Creek, closed their eyes, and counted the sounds surrounding them. At first fidgets and giggles prevailed, then as students settled into the place, the sounds of Clear Creek rushing by in springtime glory filled up and overwhelmed their hearing. The thunderous force of water created a transition to slow down and observe the environment.

A goal of the CMC’s Youth Education Program is to teach children to use their senses to experience a place, this place. We worked with them in the wetland behind their school on the plains, and again at Clear Creek in Golden.

   Modified photographs provide a fine way for students to define their experience of a "Sense of Place"

“Find a place that you want to explore with your senses.” And so, the middle school students spread out along the riparian corridor. One sat looking at a rock with many colors etched on the surface; another found a tree with two stout branches separating to form a frame for the scene beyond. Despite declarations of “I can’t draw,” they took pencil to paper and really looked at their “place,” examining the texture of bark, the flow of moving water, the graceful arch of a clump of grass. Once they had completed a drawing of something in nature, each student used a Polaroid® camera to take a photo of their “place.” Using “write-on” film, some students then used oil pastels and watercolor pencils to change their photos into impressionistic works of art. Some students wrote a poem about their place, while others sat quietly and observed.

Suddenly, surprisingly, two hours had rushed by, just like the water flowing from the mountains to the plains. Minutes merged into hours—and the students didn’t even notice!

Middle school students experience the burn

A thousand acres of charred trees stick out of the scorched earth west of Boulder. Wildfire raged last September at Walker Ranch, a Boulder County Open Space Park, creating a landscape reminiscent of lunar photographs. In May, the Youth Education Program organized a field trip for 150 students from Platt Middle School in Boulder. Most of the students and teachers had never been to the park at 7,500 feet just twenty minutes outside of town. They hiked or walked through burned areas, as well as forest fragments that escaped the fire, learning about fire ecology and some of the impacts the fire has created on their watershed, as well as issues that go into managing public lands.

Students chose the type of small group they wanted to participate in for the day, either hiking several miles or walking a short distance between activity stations. Working with park officials and putting our Leave No Trace ethics into practice, we were able to organize a huge group of people into small groups, learning in different areas of the park.

Wildfire needs three things to burn—referred to as the fire triangle—oxygen provided by our windy climate; a source of ignition; and fuel.

Hiking through the dense forest of Douglas fir trees on the Columbine Gulch Trail, fuel for a fire is everywhere. Students looked at the characteristics of the tree species to understand how they relate to fire ecology. Douglas fir trees have “flat and friendly” needles: each needle grows individually from its branch. The branches grow from the base of the trunk at ground level, creating a ladder for fire to climb up the tree to the forest canopy. Students observed that the trees grow close together, adding plentiful fuel and consequently heat and intensity to a fire.

The other dominant tree species in the montane life zone, ponderosa pine, has long needles that grow in fascicles or “packets” of two or three needles. Sixth graders enjoyed searching for individual trees with the characteristic scent of vanilla or butterscotch and feeling their thick, protective bark. Ponderosa trees are adapted to frequent, low intensity fires. The branches on mature trees start growing several feet off the ground so that small fires sweeping along the ground burn the underbrush competing for nutrients and growing space, but do not climb to the crown of the tree.

The Meyer Ranch trailhead is a great area to observe this adaptation. Several years ago the area was managed by clearing out underbrush as a low intensity fire would do. So after the wildfire last fall, the majority of ponderosa trees now thrive, and the ground is covered with lush wildflowers. In contrast, the surrounding views are of ponderosa pine burnt to a crisp with barren hillsides in danger of eroding into South Boulder Creek. They are the result of high intensity fire, caused by dense unhealthy forest and significant “understory” growth.

Students overlooked South Boulder Creek and used topo maps to see how the same creek flows near their school. After creating a model of a watershed, they discussed how the quality of their water is affected by the Walker Ranch fire. Eroded soil washing into the stream is carried into reservoirs, filling them up prematurely. Stream life is negatively affected, and the overall water quality is often diminished.

Some of the students discussed the issues of managing parks and the controversies around prescribed burning. They found that low intensity fires actually have a positive affect on a ponderosa pine forest, creating better habitat and healthier trees as well as diminishing the danger of high intensity, devastating fire. The sixth graders discussed viewpoints of homeowners, park visitors, park resource managers, and others, noting that the issues are not simple. On the lighter side, they created drawings with charcoal from the burned trees while the other students completed a longer, more rigorous hike.

It was a field trip not to be forgotten soon, and the club hopes to work with Platt Middle school again next year.

What is wilderness?

Students at Deer Creek Middle School in Littleton spent some time grappling over the concept of “what is a wilderness area?” Vera Smith, CMC Conservation Director, gave an introduction to the Wilderness Act of 1963, including citizen involvement and the background about Vermillion Basin, a proposed Wilderness Area in the western part of the state.

Vermillion has a variety of stakeholders, such as the oil and gas industry, cattle ranchers, and off-road vehicle users. In addition, the area is rich with Native American artifacts and petroglyphs.

Students worked in small groups, each reading background information about a specific stakeholder group. Then, we set up a mock citizen advisory meeting where each stakeholder group could present their position on Wilderness designation and ask questions of the other stakeholder groups represented.

Rob McMullen, a history teacher at Deer Creek said, “all the presenters did a fantastic job, and the presentation itself was very well designed. You guys were able to bring a very complicated topic down to an eighth grade level in such a short period of time.”