The Virginia Coast Reserve Schoolyard LTER Program

The VCR/LTER SLTER Program was introduced to Northampton County Public Schools in 1998 when, as part of a networking supplement the VCR/LTER provided networking equipment to improve the Internet access of Northampton High School (NHS), so that LTER WWW resources would be accessible. In the Fall 1999 and Spring 2000 semesters we began with classroom activities in the high school including introductions to Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Water Chemistry and Plant Taxonomy, where we interfaced with 125+ students.

We introduced the SLTER program to teachers at the Northampton Middle School (NMS) in Fall 2001 and conducted a SLTER workshop for NHS and NMS on January 25, 2002. In January 2002 we began classroom activities at the Middle School: GPS and Pond Water Chemistry. We will be interfacing with 300+ students at the Middle School level this semester.

During the SLTER workshop in January 2002, we developed a vision of how the SLTER Program would interact with students from Grade 6-12. We hope to introduce students at the Grade 6-8 levels with research tools and build on that process to the point where they will be doing investigative science at the High School level. Many of the current activities at the high school (GPS and Water Chemistry) provide data sets that are very beneficial to the VCR/LTER Program. We hope to develop more programs that provide a dual role: education to students and provide useful data sets to VCR/LTER.

During the summer of 2001, the SLTER Program supported two NHS juniors to conduct a water chemistry project sampling fresh water drainage basins. These students return to the high school the following year and act as interns to their peers. They recently presented their data sets at the annual VCR/LTER All Scientists meeting in January 2001.

The VCR/LTER PI Bruce Hayden also taught a graduate level course (ENVSCI 796) for high school teachers during the 2001 summer in which we used the same tools and methods (at and advanced level) used in teaching the SLTER high school students. This 10-module course covered GPS/GIS, data management in Excel, Watershed Crop Biogeography, Field and Drainage Water Chemistry, Thermal climates, Populations (Sociology of Friends and Fiddler Crabs).

At the high school level, we now have a dedicated SLTER class that is called ENVSCI II. The VCR/LTER staff teaches all aspects of this class in which all of our SLTER research tools are utilized. Water chemistry coupled with GPS locations provides training for students but also provides excellent data sets for use by VCR/LTER. Low-cost digital “HOBO” air temperature loggers are deployed at various locations in the county, which again provides training to students but also provides VCR/LTER with data sets useful in determining variability in air temperatures throughout the County. We encourage our students to take the equipment home with them and record data. The students are also assisting in VCR/LTER’s annual Biomass sampling where they are refining their Plant Taxonomy skills. These students will be making presentations on their data and results at various levels in the school system, public forums and VCR/LTER meetings.

Number of SLTER students involved: 425+

Equipment purchases: One of our approaches has been to provide field and computation equipment needed to support field exercises. To this end we have purchased for use by SLTER students 48 Magellan 310 GPS units (24 for the high school and 24 for the middle school); Ten Dell Dimension PC’s with Internet Explorer, Netmeeting and GIS software, Win2000 upgrades; PC Cameras for Netmeeting and research photos; Water Chemistry equipment and training at high school; Pond sampling kits; 72 plant tax resource books and herbarium equipment (presses, mounting supplies); Other resource books: Life on the Chesapeake (24 copies).

‘Hands On’ Training Programs: Excel spreadsheets and data management, GPS, ArcView 3.2 (GIS), water chemistry equipment, Hobo air temperature recorders and PC interface, and making good scientific presentations.

We are currently working on a Wireless Networking System within the VCR/LTER Program, which will enable SLTER interactive classrooms via the Internet whereas we will broadcast live on the web interactions between researchers/SLTER students as well as SLTER field trips and research activities.

Web Page: http://www.vcrlter.virginia.edu/slter

Progress Report: 2/22/02. C.R. Carlson.