MOUNT VERNON — Rare October sunlight streamed through the alder and evergreen branches and dappled Trumpeter Creek below. The leaves had turned; many had already fallen and littered the stream bed. Soon, the chilly brook would be a spawning ground for coho salmon.

It wasn’t always this way, Lucy DeGrace told the group of 25 students in Rebecca Krueger’s advanced placement environmental science class from Mount Vernon High School. At one time, ditch-digging machines straightened the stream to make it more friendly to farming.

Despite the muddy water, the lack of gravel and shade trees and the poor water quality, the salmon persevered.

At the field trip to Trumpeter Creek behind Bakerview Park in northeast Mount Vernon, Krueger asked students to step into hip waders and galoshes to collect insects from the stream bed.

Few students get this kind of hands-on experience, but more and more, parents and teachers want their students to learn about the causes and consequences of climate change, said Gilda Wheeler, program coordinator for environmental education for the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

“These are issues that students, as adults, are going to have to grapple with and address,” Wheeler said. “We want students to be prepared and have the knowledge and skills to do that ... so we can have resources for future generations.”

Wheeler said educational standards are broad.

The state currently wants students to know how to “analyze the effects human activities have on Earth’s capacity to sustain biological diversity,” according to the Essential Academic Learning Requirements. Ninth-graders are also supposed to know and apply “science concepts and skills to develop solutions to human problems in societal contexts.” Wheeler said both passages can refer to global warming, ozone depletion or sustainability.

The state allows school districts to craft programs to meet their own students’ needs.

Teresa Van Haalen, director of curriculum and instructional technology for the Mount Vernon School District, said some schools in that district teach sustainability as early as kindergarten.

Individual districts set the bar for textbooks, and Krueger said she’s had no trouble finding material.

“Our textbook has an excellent chapter on climate change,” she said.
Other school districts in the area teach about climate change, too.

“There are several places where the environment is taught,” said Cinthia Simonsen, director of learning and instruction for the Anacortes School District.

Anacortes High School has an advanced placement environmental science class, she said. Teachers present current research, as well as political viewpoints and the controversy surrounding global warming.

Several area high schools have Earth clubs, which show films like Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” or spur recycling efforts at the schools.

At Concrete Middle School, teacher Mary Janda hopes to give students a firm background in environmental science. While the students won’t study global warming, they do study weather. They also study Lorenzan Creek, which runs near Concrete Middle School. Janda’s four classes are part of the Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group’s junior stream stewards program.

Students will plant native trees along the riverside and monitor water quality. They also attend a three-day outdoors school to reinforce classroom instruction. Janda said she’s already seeing remarkable results.

“I know this program is working. ... All of these things are adding up,” she said. “How you can tell you’ve hit a nerve is when the students say ‘My mom was really surprised.’”

Wheeler said there are some “exciting initiatives happening in Washington state that will result in new curriculum and programs around climate change.”

OSPI is partnering with a number of organizations to bring sustainable design projects to schools, as well as student-initiated energy audits for their school campuses, she said.

There is also some evidence that hands-on, inquiry-based environmental education programs can help improve math, social studies and science test scores, Wheeler said.

“There’s definitely a positive correlation,” Wheeler said.

Starting in 2008, the Environmental Education Association of Washington and Puget Sound Energy will partner with OSPI on a project to teach high school seniors about sustainable design principles.

Joshua Berger, the E3 regional coordinator for EEAW, said education needs to happen outside school walls for the lessons to sink in.

E3, which stands for environment, education and economy, is trying to redefine environmental education.

“From my personal perspective, I think environmental education needs to be experiential,” he said. “Climate change is not going to be solved in just the schools or just by businesses.”

Berger said he sees students getting involved in climate change in Olympia.
“It’s mobilized by students to teach each other about what’s happening with climate change,” he said. “Students are less blocked by constraints as adults are to actually make change.”

But, Wheeler said, students also need to learn to look critically at the evidence in this relatively new field.

“It’s important that students, when they are taught about climate change, that they learn different perspectives and are able to analyze the sources of information,” she said.

Perspective is important to teachers like Mount Vernon High’s Krueger, as well. That’s why she’s having the students in her environmental science class see the local area’s habitat first-hand.

Some time next year, after the salmon have spawned and died, her students will learn how climate change can affect the species in the stream, from insects and invertebrates to salmon.

“When they’re reading about climate change, rising ocean levels, they can consider the effect that might have on salmon recovery. When they have a stream to picture, they’ll understand conditions of streams that salmon are dependent on.”

Skagit Warming Series:
Skagit Warming Page
Climate change and the Skagit Valley
Temperatures rising, glaciers melting in Northwest
Researchers explore effects of climate change on health
Warming’s impact on Skagit water
Climate change poses threat to regional icons
Warming shifts odds away from salmon survival
Climate change could have dramatic impact on local agricultural scene
Cashing in on global warming
Warming: A rising tide
Tribe, La Conner on front lines
Green Power
Nuclear power unlikely alternative
Skagit Warming: Government action
Climate and You
What You Can Do
Why turn off the lights?
Skagit Warming: Tell us what you think

*Kate Martin can be reached at 360-416-2145 or at .