BNL Office of Educational Programs Hosts Open Space Stewardship Teacher Workshop

sampling

Top: Mel Morris, Office of Educational Programs, studies a water sample with a workshop participant. Bottom: Capturing samples.

Last week, July 14-18, BNL's Office of Educational Programs (OEP) held the Open Space Stewardship Program (OSSP) Teacher Workshop at BNL. The five-day workshop was led by OSSP leader teachers Amy Meyer and Ivan Suarez from William Floyd and Longwood School Districts, respectively.

The workshop was designed for teachers who will be participating in the program for the first time during the 2008-09 school year. During the week, 14 teachers from local schools learned how to use equipment such as GPS - global positioning systems - tracking devices, and soil and water test kits that they will use with their students during the year.

"The goal for today will be to get you out of your comfort zones into a new feeling that 'I can do the fieldwork myself, and I can do the fieldwork with my students,'" explained Suarez, before participants left for Longwood Estates, where they took pond water samples on Wednesday.

The teachers appreciated learning about different techniques and research themes. "I think this workshop is great," said Aaron Factor, a science research teacher at Middle Country Central School District. "One of the big reasons I'm taking this class is to get research ideas to do with my students. I will definitely take them out into the field and if they just learn how to take data during the first half of the year, it will be excellent."

Research projects planned by the teachers for the fall are wide-ranging. Donna Edgar, a marine biology teacher from Bayport-Blue Point High School, will be monitoring different field parameters, such as dissolved oxygen, nitrates, phosphates, and temperature within the Brown's River Watershed and a few other surrounding estuarine areas.

"It is important to make students aware that activities that are carried out in an upland watershed may greatly influence a neighboring ecosystem such as the Great South Bay," explained Edgar.

Workshop attendees

The 2008 Open Space Stewardship Program Teacher Workshop attendees.

Al Levik, a Middle Country School 11th and 12th grade physics teacher, plans to use GPS tracking devices and distance displacement vectors to determine tree line distance. "This program is focused on earth and environmental research, but we can take a lot from it also for physics research," Levik said.

OEP launched the OSSP in 2006 as part of its GREEN Institute. GREEN stands for "Gaining Research Experience in the Environment."

"This program provides an opportunity for students in grades K through 12 to be out in their local environment, doing science research," said Mel Morris, an educational programs administrator at OEP. "It also prepares the future generation of environmentally literate citizens and environmentalists." During the school year, students do environmental research on undeveloped land within their school district that is owned by either a public or private agency. Past classroom projects have included tracking black squirrel populations at the Robert J. Henke Memorial Nature Preserve, studying an interdunal swale habitat at the Harper's Preserve in Southold, and testing soil samples from a field near the Albert G. Prodell Middle School. Each spring, the students present their work at a student symposium held at BNL. For more information about OSSP, visit: www.greenossp.org or contact Morris at 631-344-5963 or mmorris@bnl.gov.

2008-792  |  INT/EXT  |  Newsroom