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| Guide to Finding a Local Specialist. | |||
We encourage you to enlist the help of local specialists who are knowledgeable about plants and arthropods. They may well become some of your most valuable resources. A specialist can help you:
Below, two Biodiversity Counts mentors, Linda Beyt and Karen Spaulding, talk about how they identified and brought in local specialists to their schools to help them with their classes' field work. How to Find Local Specialists by Linda Beyt There are lots of places that you can go to find local specialists in plants and animals, and surprisingly, most of the people I talked to were very happy to help. I started by describing the program, and they would say, "I wish my son or daughter could get to do this too." I was lucky enough to have contacts with the National Wetlands Research Center here in Louisiana. They put me in touch with two botanists who came on site visits with us and helped students count and identify plants. A scientist from the Forestry Department toured the site with us, too, and told us about its history. Before the Civil War it had been a plantation, with big formal gardens. He helped us identify some of the old trees and showed us how to take core samples from them. It was a great way for students to connect the history of the site with its natural history. Another scientist invited the class to the Wetlands Research Center. He helped us find about 20 different plants in bloom, which was very surprising since it was December. Then he demonstrated how to dig a few samples up and showed us how to press them. He even lent us the press to use back at our own site. We really got a lot out of our experiences with the local experts. They provided us with much information, and they also made science come alive for me and my class. They were great role models--and career models too. Linda Beyt is a middle school teacher in Lafayette, Louisiana. Enlisting Volunteers by Karen Spaulding It's always helpful to have at least one extra body when you are going out into the field. And it helps to make your expectations clear for the class and to define what it is they are going to be doing. Get as many people as you can into your classroom to help you and also to serve as role models. The more adults that kids see sticking their hands into the dirt and getting dirty, the more likely they are to do it too. And it's always good to have a diverse range of role models. I had several university volunteers: an undergraduate student from MIT, another from Leslie College, and a master's degree student from Simmons College. There are a couple of good ways to find university students who want to work in the classroom. Some universities have student-run volunteer organizations. Students sign up, and you can contact them directly. Another way is to contact the Education Department at the university. MIT has a Web site where you can actually fill out a profile telling what your needs are, and then interested students can get in touch with you by E-mail. Another volunteer I work with is a local ranger. She is actually hired by the city of Cambridge, which is unique in Massachusetts. Most rangers are at the state or federal level, but we have a local ranger who is an expert in the local environment. She works out of the Department of Water, mostly over at our reservoir, Fresh Pond. She knows what you can find alive in the city and she has a lot of stories and a lot of good background information. She is a native Cambridgian, which is always a good thing when you are trying to connect with city kids. Seeing another city person getting down and getting dirty always encourages those kids who are hesitant to roll up their sleeves and get to work. She has been very helpful giving us information about what's alive and connecting it to the history of Cambridge. And then there is our local self-proclaimed birdman. He has become an expert on the local birds in Cambridge. We found out about him through a little article in the local paper. To find local experts like that, call some of the city agencies and ask who is out there. You'll be surprised how many local experts there are. Karen Spaulding is a middle school teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts. |
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