Wakarusa Wetland Learners
The Wakarusa Wetland Learners fieldtrips are back for the 08/09 school year!
The WWL project was initiated in Spring 2006 by Jayhawk Audubon Society and implemented in partnership with Kaw Valley Heritage Alliance, its new primary sponsor. Its purpose is to engage 6th grade students in activities designed to increase their awareness, appreciation, knowledge and understanding of natural environments—beginning with wetlands—and to increase their interest in conservation and preservation. Through activities involving scientific investigation, creative self-expression, and learning about the ecological value and historical context of wetlands, students are encouraged to develop a lifelong, mutually-beneficial relationship with Earth’s ecosystems and the organisms living in them.
Trips focus on the area of the Wakarusa wetlands located on the south side of 31st Street, just south and east of Broken Arrow Park. To make the Wakarusa Wetland Learners project as easy as possible for teachers and students to participate in, we provide busing, facilitators* for activities in the wetlands, coordination of the activities for each trip, and some support for teachers in preparing and following up with students—including a special website at http://wetlandlearners.org. All sixth grade classes are invited to take advantage of this opportunity by scheduling a trip for Fall 2008 or Spring 2009.
The biggest change this year is with the funding that helped us launch the program. The Kaw Valley Heritage Alliance has taken the lead on continuing to provide the field trips. However, we are entirely bootstrapping to cover project expenses – mostly coordinating volunteers, teacher and intern support, materials and travel expenses. Jayhawk Audubon has made available about $2,250 to help with wetland field trips. Cans for Community has contributed $500 for the 08/09 Wetland Learners project. Finally, a wonderful anonymous donor has contributed $2,000. We still need to come up with about $5,000 over the course of the next 9 months to make this project happen. To help us bridge this gap we’re asking participating schools to contribute $125. Also, we’re looking for sponsors to step up and match the $125 each school contributes. All donations are tax deductible. You can even pick which school you wish to sponsor!
KVHA/SL and project volunteers determine the activities to be offered according to which facilitators are available on the day of a trip. Although we can try to accommodate some preference of activities by individual schools, the focus is as follows for each trip. A minimum of 2 activities will be science-oriented, 2 will focus on the value of the ecology, geology or history of the Wakarusa wetlands, and the remaining 1 will involve writing poetry about nature, creating drawings or paintings of the natural setting, dramatizing interpretations of wetlands life, learning environmentally themed songs, or other experiences intended to increase students’ sense of connection to and appreciation for natural environments. Even if a school has multiple classes involved, we will usually schedule only 5 activities because of limited time available at the wetlands and the goal of every student experiencing every activity for which the class has been prepared.
Please see “About Wetland Learners” to find out more about the history of the project.
Please see the “KVHA Calendar” to find out about Upcoming Volunteer Opportunities.
