ATTENTION HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS AND

Middle or High School TEACHERS

 

PLATEAU RESTORATION & CANYONLANDS FIELD INSTITUTE

Present a NEW Residential

 

SUMMER SCIENCE CAMP

 

"Field Studies in Natural Resources"

 

July 24 - 28, 2008

 

At the Professor Valley Field Camp near Moab, UT

 

Featuring the following activities, based from the remote and stunning Field Camp, 20 miles from Moab, UT.

A significant number of scholarships are available for Utah High School students and Utah Middle and/or High School teachers,  Sponsored by the State of Utah Governors’ Office of Economic Development.

Price (with scholarship)        $75

(includes all food, camping equipment, and transportation during the program).

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION (see below, call or email):

info@plateaurestoration.org ;(435)259-7733 / 1-866-202-1847

Program summary

Program details

camp host and facility

program plan and schedule

instructors

 

MOAB SCIENCE CAMP

 

Field Studies in Natural Resources, Southeast Utah

Program Summary

Plateau Restoration (PRI), a 501 (c)3 organization in Moab, UT, is conducting a 5-day, residential, natural resource service-learning summer camp for high school students and middle to high school teachers, July 24 to July 28, 2008.  The residential facility is the 8-acre Professor Valley Field Camp, operated by Canyonlands Field Institute and situated on BLM lands 20 miles east of Moab, UT off the Colorado River road (Highway 128).  Participants will camp in PRI tents with sleeping bags and pads provided.  All meals will be prepared and served on-site in a beautiful outdoor setting overlooking the Fisher Towers and Mary Jane Creek, which runs through the camp.   The facility also has two Yurts, solar power, delivered water and outhouses. 

The summer science camp program is limited to 14 participants and will be staffed by a full-time camp cook/coordinator, and three full-time and two-part-time expert instructors to ensure a high quality and safe experience.  The lead organization (PRI) and primary staff has over 14 years experience in leading natural resource service-learning programs, has necessary outfitting permits and liability.  Instructors are first aid certified river guides, licensed in Utah.

We propose to engage students and teachers, working together in small teams, in field-based natural resource studies relating to ongoing research in noxious weeds, recreation, water resources and geology.  Many of these are real-time active government and state funded projects.  Additional role-playing activities will address human-natural resource interaction. The following elements will be included in every project:

 

The Professor Valley Field Camp will be a base from which trips to various study areas will be made each day.  Evening classroom and laboratory sessions will be held in a yurt at the camp. Field studies include:

 

The camp’s success will be evaluated by clearly defined questionnaires to assess level of interest and of knowledge in sciences and natural resource management issues.  Participants will complete these surveys at the beginning and end of the camp experience.

Application for scholarships will be via questionnaire and acceptance in order of receipt of qualified applicants.

 

PROGRAM DETAILS:

General Description

This camp is designed to expose high school students and teachers to natural resource management issues and studies in geology.  Central to the camp is engaging students in recreation and weed management, which will continue to represent the most significant threats to public land managers in the next several decades.  It will also teach participants basic field techniques (mapping skills, including topographic maps and GPS, vegetation surveys, measurement and interpretation of geologic strata, etc.), mathematics to analyze results and skills including camping and teamwork that are essential in most field-based natural resource studies.  In addition, the primary camp facility is “off-the-grid” with infrastructure including tracking solar panels and water conservation that can be used as a demonstration for engineering a lower dependence on water and other natural resources.

Elements that will be covered in every activity will include:

 

Instruction will include native plants and animals and their adaptations to the desert, environmental threats to desert, riparian and alpine ecosystems, and geology of the Colorado Plateau.

Evaluation of whether participants have gained interest in sciences, and in fact pursue science courses, will be performed through questionnaires.  We hope that with the small group size and multi-day format that our educators will be able to identify and to break down the barriers that many people have towards science, especially women, who form the majority of teachers.  A final report of activities and results will be posted on the Plateau Restoration website.

Plateau Restoration’s Ability and Approach:     

Plateau Restoration is uniquely qualified to conduct a camp involving education and hands-on work related to natural resources.  Having led over forty 5-day service-learning programs since 1996, primarily for college students but including elementary through high school students and educators, our leaders have the knowledge, experience and passion for engaging the public in care of lands of the Colorado Plateau.  The organization has demonstrated expertise in the areas of recreation and weed management and restoration of desert ecosystems.  Our primary instructors have 15 to 25 years of experience leading middle through high school students and educators on learning experiences in natural resources of the Colorado Plateau.  The organization has the necessary outfitting experience, permits and liability insurance to conduct programs on public lands.  As a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation that was founded in 1995, the organization has the ability to attract tax-deductible donations from private and corporate entities.  We leverage funds by matching them with a combination of in-kind labor, private donations, Federal and State grants and income from participants.  The organization was cited as a model for garnering project support in Andy Robinson’s book “Selling Social Change - Without Selling Out”.

Outfitting for field studies, including river rafting, will be provided by Plateau Restoration, who has outfitting permits with the BLM along the Colorado River and with the USFS in the Manti-LaSal Mountains.  Plateau Restoration will provide all transportation during the camp in 15-passenger vans.  Our full-time camp instructors each have between 15 and 30 years of professional whitewater guiding and leadership of outdoor educational field trips.

 

Facility and resources:

The facility for housing the camp will be provided by our partner, Canyonlands Field Institute, at their Professor Valley Field Camp.   This 8-acre facility has two yurts (kitchen and classroom), solar power, primitive water distribution system, vault toilets and space for camping.  The teaching yurt provides for evening laboratory work and slide presentations.  Plateau Restoration has necessary microscopes, projectors, computers, tools and most field equipment and to conduct the camp.  Three instructors and a camp cook/coordinator will be present throughout the program and two guest instructors, actively involved in the research, will each be present for an evening lesson and full day of field work.

A. Program Plan

The camp is designed to provide sufficient background information for participants to fully understand the scope of their on-the-ground activities.  Classroom work, including formal presentations and laboratory studies will be performed in the evenings, with field trips emanating from the Professor Valley Field Camp during the day.  In addition to high school students, we hope to attract participation from teachers in the local community who would develop an interest in continuing data collection on long-term projects with their students.

 

The main areas of focus will be weed management, although supplementary studies in geology and recreation management will be included to broaden the experience of field applications.  Participants will contribute to data collection and treatments for current long-term research projects in mountain recreation impacts and control of Tamarisk and Diffuse Knapweed, both of which are on the noxious weed list.

 

Participants will meet the first day at the Canyonlands Field Institute’s Professor Valley Field Camp (PVFC), approximately twenty miles from Moab.  The camp program will be limited to 14 participants to ensure adequate expert staff supervision for complex projects.  All food, camping gear and transportation during the camp are provided, along with necessary safety equipment.  Three full-time instructors, a camp cook/organizer and two part-time guest instructors will staff the camp.  Each day we will travel to a different site from the field camp for the day’s activities.  Evening laboratory work will include plant and insect identification, soil analysis, and map and compass skills that will so be applied in the field. 

Proposed Program Schedule:

Thurs July 24:

 

Friday July 25:

 

Saturday July 26 :

 

Sun July 27 :

 

Mon July 28:

Instructors:

Tamsin McCormick (PhD, Geology, 1984, Arizona State University), lead instructor and coordinator of the proposed camp, has been regularly teaching informal field-based courses in geology and natural history of the Colorado Plateau, to college, middle and high school students since 1995.  In addition to extensive published research in geology, she has also conducted sponsored research in recreational impacts and in vegetation communities of southeast Utah.  Since 1996, she has been leading service-learning programs for Plateau Restoration and also been adjunct faculty at Utah State University.

 

Wright Robinson (MS, biology, 1978, Old Dominion University), guest instructor, has been conducting field research on biological control of Tamarisk with the Grand County Weed Department since Spring, 2007.  He has been performing biological field research since 1978 and taught middle and high school biology from 1986 to 2006.  The author of nine books, an extended field ecology manual for AP Environmental Science and Statistics and several other publications, along with numerous professional presentations at national and regional science teacher conferences, he is also actively involved in macroinvertegrate monitoring in streams in the Moab area.

 

Pam Hackley, guest instructor for plant identification and weed science, is a Certified Professional Wetlands Scientist who owned an environmental consulting company in Montana for over 15 years and has been involved in weed management and monitoring in Castle Valley for the last six years.

 

Michael Dean Smith, Founder and Board President of Plateau Restoration, has degrees in Outdoor Education and Outdoor Recreation Resource Management from Prescott College (1986).  He has led environmental education and service-learning programs for middle school through college students since 1993 and has been lead investigator in projects monitoring and mitigating recreation impacts in the La Sal Mountains since 2005.

Educational Experts:

Ed De Francia (BS, Math, University of Colorado; MA Educational Leadership, University of Northern Colorado, 1993) has been teaching middle and high school mathematics and physics since 1984, has been with Grand County High School since 1997 and has served as principal at Dolores Middle / High School and assistant Principal at Grand County High School.

Opportunities for peer interaction, group learning:

Participants will work in teams of 2-3 for data collection each day (insect monitoring, mapping, measurement of stratigraphic sections, vegetation surveys, etc.).  Different teams will each work on compilation, analysis and presentation of data from one day to the rest of the group. On the final day, there will be a group discussion of results and interpretation. Other activities, including manual weed control, and rehabilitation of social trails will be done as a group, with participants being able to work alongside other members of the group. 

Educational activities that involve the group include rock identification and ‘town meetings’ whereas other laboratory work will generally be conducted in small groups or pairs of students.

Alignment with higher education programs, partners, leveraging of funds:

The camp will support a number of ongoing funded projects, whose partners include EPA, National Forest Foundation, USDA (APHIS) and Patagonia.    This summer camp is consistent with USU Extension’s goals to increase Moab’s reputation for quality natural resource education and to improve enrollment of local high school graduates at the Moab campus.  We hope next year to offer concurrent USU credits to participants.