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The Chehalis Basin Education Consortium

By Kathy Jacobson

Think of a classroom nearly one and one-half times the size of the state of Delaware and you have the area served by the Chehalis Basin Education Consortium (CBEC).

The eight-year-old partnership includes ESD 113, school districts, natural resource agencies, higher education institutions, and nonprofit organizations within the 2,700 square mile Chehalis River watershed. (Delaware has an area of 1,954 square miles.)

Through a variety of programs, the CBEC allows teachers, students and parents to become personally involved in issues important to the health of the watershed, which stretches for more than 100 miles from the Chehalis River headwaters in the William Hills to the river mouth in Grays Harbor near Aberdeen.

The primary purpose of this project is to support stewardship of the Chehalis watershed through environmental education by linking Washington's learning goals and standards to environmental issues. A fundamental CBEC project belief is that integrated curricula using essential questions and performance-based assessments improves student learning. Courses cross many subject areas including science, math, language arts, history, art, and physical education.

During the 2006-2007 school year, more than 1,000 students from grades 3 through 12 from 13 school districts participated in CBEC activities. The state Department of Ecology, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, as well as ESD 113 and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, along with Grays Harbor College have all provided resources for CBEC projects.

Using the environment as a teaching tool, students have acquired water quality monitoring and other environmental science field skills. Through their watershed studies, water testing and hands-on involvement in riparian restoration projects, students learned about stream chemistry and flow, habitat, weather, human impacts on the watershed, flooding, salmon recovery, riparian zones and general ecology. Students have also been involved with planting native trees and shrubs along rivers and creeks in the basin, stream clean-ups, the removal of invasive plant species, creating nature trails on school grounds, and other action projects.

The CBEC also sponsors "Words and Images from the Watershed: Washington's River of Words" teacher and student workshops as well as a regional art and poetry contest. Many students fine-tuned their artistic, observational and journal-writing skills, and created beautiful works of art and poetry inspired by the Chehalis Watershed.

This program is designed to help youth explore their own watershed, to discover the importance of the Chehalis watershed in their lives and to be able to express what they have learned, felt and observed in words and images. In addition, paying early attention to nature's details can play a major role in speech development, observational skills, writing and artwork. A sample of comments from teachers who have participated in CBEC programs shows increased student motivation and an eagerness to learn that isn't present in the normal classroom setting.

One teacher commented that she participates in the CBEC project because "CBEC allows students to experience science and expand their understanding of their community. It also allows me to bring life to environmental studies - a topic I love - and hit important, often-neglected Washington State Grade Level Expectations."

Another teacher noted that students who are not particularly successful in the classroom "found their strengths while on the field trips." Another teacher's evaluation included this comment: "Prior to this, many of my students had very little exposure to environmental issues. This year, they have begun to develop a sense that they are part of a community, as well as the belief that they as individuals can make an impact."

Kathy Jacobson works with the Chehalis Basin Education Consortium. For more information, please contact her at mailto:kjacobson@esd113k12.wa.us or 360-464-6722.


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