July 26, 2009

Summer Discovery
Local children get a chance to learn, play and improve their odds of
getting a good education

By Sam Craig
of The Chronicle

     Summer has a way of helping kids forget a lot of what they learned the previous school year. It might be the hot sun, the pool water or the copious amount of free time spent watching reruns, instead of in front of a book; something about summer creates a knowledge drain.
     For many kids, that’s no problem. Sure, the first few days back behind the desk are tough, but they get the hang of it pretty fast. But for other students, it’s too much. They start falling behind their classmates, and that can spell disaster when report card time comes around.
     There’s a critical transition between third and fourth grade when things change. School is no longer about the basics like letters, counting and learning to read.      You are expected to know those things so you can use them in your studies. If you’ve fallen behind at this point, getting caught up is very difficult.
     For those reasons, the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center set up a program this summer to give some extra help to kids who will really need it: kids who are in between third and fourth grades and might not know what to do when they get back to class in the fall.
     A group of about 30 former third graders went from bored kids on summer break to become Junior Stewards. They aren’t spending their whole summer on the sofa; they’ve got things to do.
     “They’ve been involved with stewardship projects,” said Linda Turner, who works for the Forest Service at the Discovery Center. “They’re learning to take care of the earth. They’ve done different things. Typically once a week they’ll do something out here on the grounds, so I find something for them to do, from picking up trash to pulling non-native weeds to trimming, carrying water to our seedlings.” But that’s just scratching the surface of the program. What looks like a bunch of kids having a really good time is actually a bunch of kids learning vital skills. And having a really good time.
     The program’s main aim is for kids to be sharp, focused and ready to go back to fourth grade in the fall.
     “The program is for kids that were maybe struggling a little bit,” Turner said. “From first, second and third grade, you’re learning how to read and from fourth grade on up, you’re expected to read your science book, read your geography book. So maybe it’s kids who are still struggling and then over the summer they forget about practicing reading and they come back to school as fourth graders and they start falling behind. So it was an opportunity to identify some kids who could benefit from this summer program.”
     Under the guise of fun and exciting nature studies, kids are boosting their reading and learning skills with help from people like Turner; Jessica Gehrig, a teacher at Chenowith Elementary; Mayra Castaneda, an ESL teacher at Chenowith; and Jenny Gilbert, an Americorp representative with the Columbia Gorge Ecology Institute. Working with them are six high school students who have dedicated much of their summer to helping kids learn, as well as learning about environmental stewardship themselves.
     The kids aren’t just learning at the museum. Their summer has been full of adventure as well.
     Last week, they went out to White Salmon with workers at the Oregon Zoo. Their goal: releasing baby turtles into the wild. The turtles had hatched and were allowed to mature a little bit at the zoo. They were trucked up from Portland and the kids got a chance to see animals being reintroduced into their natural habitat. As the culmination to their animal week, this might have been the best way to end a lesson, program instructors say.
     For geology week, the kids took a trip to Horsethief Lake to get a good look at the geological formations right in their own backyard. While climbing up boulders and into caves, they saw just what the earth could do. After seeing the pictograph, She-Who-Watches, the kids found their own rocks and painted pictographs of their own.
     The curriculum for the program had, for the most part, been set, but with the addition of the six high school students, there have been a few more additions to the lessons.
     “The high school kids have led them on activities and have developed some activities too,” Turner said. “The high school kids went to the library and brought back a big stack of books. Once a day they’ll read to the kids and have them read it back. It’s been a completely wonderful program.”
     The program is the end product of four organizations working together. The Columbia Gorge Ecology Institute, the Forest Service, the Discovery Center and the North Wasco School District all put time and money in the pot to help out a group of kids who really needed some assistance. Teachers from the three elementary schools in The Dalles —Colonel Wright, Chenowith and Dry Hollow— picked 10 students from each school who they thought would benefit the most.
     “The ESL teachers started picking from the ESL group who they thought would be a good candidate, five students from each school,” Gehrig said. “From the three elementary schools. Then the third grade elementary school teachers were in charge of choosing five non-ESL kids who were on intervention, but with good behavior and seemed interested in learning. We wanted to help kids who needed it, but also wanted to help themselves.”
     It’s been a positive experience for the kids, say the instructors. Keeping them learning has been pretty easy, and their exuberance comes naturally to them.
“I think, especially the ones who come every day — we’ve had issues with attendance — but the ones who come every day, they’re here, they’re excited, they tell their parents about what they learned,” Gehrig said. “I’ve had quite a few come back and say, ‘My mom was so impressed that I could do this.’”
     Thursday, July 23 was the last day of the program. As a treat, the kids were surprised with an impromptu ice cream party. As the students argued the merits of fudge bars versus orange cream bars, the four students with perfect attendance were rewarded with a prize.
     They were allowed to pick out a poster they had created during class. Alex Calderon knew exactly which poster he wanted.
     He pointed at the brightly painted piece of butcher paper on the wall that described the process of precipitation.
     “I chose it because I like the sunset,” said Alex, who had also had a hand in creating the poster. “We thought of the mountains going up and the rain going down. I’m going to hang it in my room.”
     Alex — who was a proponent of the fudge bars — said he had a lot he would take away from the field trips and the lessons, but he really enjoyed a pretty simple thing the most.
     “I learned a lot,” Alex said. “But mostly the best part was being outside.”