The
Source
A Newsletter of the Thornton Creek Project
Fall 2001
A
free copy of Acrobat
Reader can be
downloaded here.
Contents:
Welcome
Mission Statement
From the Schools Coordinator
Who's Who in TCP
Calendar
What's new with TCP?
An inside look at TCP
Make a Difference
History Hunt
Welcome
to the Thornton Creek Project!
It is a new school year, and we at the Thornton Creek Project are
enthusiastic for another year of connecting teachers and students with our
watershed community!
As usual, there are already many things to look forward to this
fall ("Mark Your Calendar," page 2), and updates on recent
Project events ("What's New with TCP?" page 2).
For people new to the Thornton Creek
Project, this newsletter gives an overview of how we support teachers to
help them complete projects in the watershed (page 3).
Visit
our website for more information: www.thorntoncreek.org.
By inspiring and supporting educators’ use of Thornton Creek and its watershed, the Thornton Creek project fosters educational innovations that make local community an essential element of teaching and learning.
Hello
from the new Schools Coordinator
Greetings to all Thornton Creek watershed (and other) teachers! Please allow me to introduce myself as this year's Schools
Coordinator for the Thornton Creek Project.
My name is Peter Lortz and I am also a Life Sciences teacher at
North Seattle Community College. I
have been at NSCC for seven years and have taught a variety of classes,
from Environmental Science to Anatomy & Physiology.
I have been involved with TCP in various capacities for about five years,
and am very excited to spend the school year working closely with you as
the Schools Coordinator. I
will be the primary liaison between the teachers and TCP.
If you have any questions about how TCP can help you, please do not
hesitate to call (206-528-4516) or email me (plortz@sccd.ctc.edu).
I look forward to meeting
and working with you!
Who's
Who in the Thornton
Creek Project
Staff
Director
- Meredith Lohr
Technology and Communications
Coordinator - Emily Inkpen
Schools Coordinator - Pete Lortz
Program Developer - Peter
Hayes
TCP
Steerers Board
Chair
- Richard Gelb
Vice Chair - Janet Charnley
Treasurer - Mary Manous
Board Members - Linda Vane,
Stewards
Council Co-Chairs:
Elaine
Woo - Seattle Public Schools
Scott Haskins - Seattle Public Utilities
Mark
your Calendar!
October 11th - Watershed Orientation, Meadowbrook Community Center,
4:30-6:00 p.m. Teachers, we encourage you to come learn how TCP
can help your students learn about their community. We will provide
you with resources that connect the watershed to what you are doing
in classroom.
Contact the TCP office before Oct. 8th to sign up.
October
20th - Long Walk of the North Fork of Thornton Creek, 9 a.m.
Join us and other watershed-curious folk as we follow the
North Fork of the creek through Shoreline to the mouth at Matthews
beach. Please call the office to RSVP.
October 29th - Computer Mapping Workshop, North Annex, Seattle School District, 4-5:30 p.m. A workshop for teachers to learn a geographic information system (GIS) for mapping local geography, history, or watershed monitoring data. Contact TCP office for more information.
November
15th - Local History Roundup, Library Classroom, Lakeside
School 7 p.m.
The
Project is looking for teachers of any level and people with
interest and/or expertise in local history to be involved with
developing our Local History program.
Contact Peter Hayes at
440-2754 or peter.hayes@lakesideschool.org.
What's new with the Thornton Creek Project?
Technology
in the watershed
The
Thornton Creek Project strives to make technology equitably
available to schools and to support the use of technology where it
logically fits within classroom curricula.
Many
teachers have designed innovative projects that integrated
technologies such as web authoring software, word processing,
computer mapping, and digital scanners into community-based
learning. We have profiled some of these projects on our website to
share these ideas with other teachers.
Goals, required resources, and contact information for each
project are available at www.thorntoncreek.org.
If your class has used
technology in a community-based project, or is interested in doing
so, we’d
love to hear from you! Contact Emily Inkpen at tcptech@nsccux.sccd.ctc.edu
or by phone at the Project office.
Sister
watershed in Chile!
Last spring, the Thornton Creek Project, with
assistance from the non-profit organization Partners of the
Americas, hosted Doris Venegas, a teacher from the town
of Traiguen, Chile, as the first step in a cross-cultural
partnership centered around watershed education.
Doris
was chosen out of numerous applicants as the recipient of a 10-day
trip to western Washington, which was funded by Partners. During her
visit, Doris met with many educators from Seattle and Shoreline and
shared strategies for connecting students with their local watershed
communities. Her
interests include oral history projects, stream ecology, and
role-playing activities.
This "Cuencas de
Amistad" partnership could also include international
correspondence between U.S. and Chilean students.
Spanish teachers with interest in community-based education
should contact the Thornton Creek Project for more information about
how to get involved.
An inside look at the Thornton Creek Project
Activities
Linked to School Curricula
There
are five main program areas through which the Thornton Creek Project
supports elementary, middle, high school and college teachers: Field
Activities to Support Science Units, Confluence, Creek Health, Community
Mapping, and Local History.
Field
activities to support science units:
TCP has developed inquiry-based field activities that complement and
provide local context for 3 of the elementary science units taught in
Seattle Public Schools: Land and Water, Ecosystems and Microworlds,
as well as for the Salmon in the Schools program.
We also lead a limited number of free field trips in the watershed,
which are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Confluence:
Students role-play different people with different viewpoints and concerns
to understand how multiple perspectives shape our community. They use
these insights to plan and implement actions to positively shape the
community's future. Confluences have been convened with upper elementary
school students as a day-long activity, and at the high school level as a
week-long activity.
Creek
Health:
TCP supports teachers and students with stream monitoring, restoration,
and other lesson plans that incorporate assessing creek health into
curricula. Check out the water-quality monitoring database on our website!
Community
mapping:
Students make their own maps of the Thornton Creek watershed using a
geographical information system (GIS), to the understand geographical,
historical, and environmental aspects of this community.
Local
History – new focus:
From the beginning of the Project, TCP has worked with enthusiastic
teachers and students on many wonderful local history projects. This year,
to encourage even more participation, the TCP staff will work with
interested teachers, administrators, and friends of local history to
develop and put to use new activities focused on better meeting school
goals through investigating local history. The
Project is looking for teachers of any level and people with interest
and/or expertise in local history to be involved with developing this new
program.
Interested?
Come
to the
Local History Roundup ("Mark Your Calendar," pg. 2).
Students
investigating a sample of creek water on a field trip tied to their
Ecosystems science unit.
Resources
Many
of our resources are available to teachers and community members
throughout the Thornton Creek watershed and beyond.
Professional
Development:
Opportunities include watershed orientations, workshops on stream ecology
and computer-based mapping, forums, roundtables and long walks (see
“Mark Your Calendar” for upcoming events and workshops).
Technology:
TCP supports teachers and classes in using our digital library and website
for sharing information, computer mapping for investigating the spatial
relations of the community, and email and listserves for communicating
with others. We also provide both training with the computer mapping
program and the related software for your school.
Materials:
TCP's lending library includes curricular materials, relief models of the
watershed, TCW atlases, stream monitoring equipment, and books and
references: The Right Places Guide, A Thornton Creek Reader,
Salmon Nation, and GIS references. Please see our website, www.thorntoncreek.org,
for more details!
The
Thornton Creek Project makes a difference, and so can you! The Project's
success depends on the efforts of community-minded people, and now is an
excellent time to get involved.
We have a variety of interesting opportunities for volunteers, and
we welcome any and all financial contributions.
For
more information, please call our office at 206.526.0187.
Your support will help ensure that our students become informed and
responsible community members, prepared to meet the challenges of the
future.
To
continue to build the Project’s collection of historical contacts and
resources, we invite you to help answer the following questions: 1) Which
current resident of the watershed has lived here the longest?
2) Who has the earliest memories of the watershed area? And
3) Where are the oldest structures in the watershed?
Mysterious, cheesy rewards await those who are most helpful in
answering these questions!!
Email or call your answers to TCP.
North Seattle Community College does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability.