Wetland Lessons in Science and Civics
Environmental Education Takes Students, Teachers on Marsh Adventures

Can middle school kids make history — and have fun doing it? For the answer, check out the entry on Wetland Watchers in Louisiana’s eighth grade history textbook, then check on the fun students are having in — and out of — Barry Guillot’s classroom at Hurst Middle School.

Guillot started Wetland Watchers as a service-learning program a decade ago. Observing students’ enthusiasm during a field trip sponsored by the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, Guillot recognized that nearby Bayou LaBranche was an ideal laboratory for both scientific study and community service.

The bayou’s complex ecosystem readily enables handson science lessons: Students test water quality, capture and identify marine organisms and chart observations recorded during outings. Wetland Watchers easily fulfills the educational component of a service-learning project, but Guillot pumps up the learning potential by calling on the program’s 35 partners — among them schools, including Louisiana State University (LSU) and the University of New Orleans; agencies and organizations such as Louisiana Department of Natural Resources and Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation; and private corporations like Dow and Motiva — for specialists to share their expertise with his class.

Undaunted by the prospect of getting wet and dirty in the course of their lessons, Guillot’s Wetland Watchers are eager to apply their knowledge and practice their skills in real-life situations. Some service activities Frequently Wetland Watchers and CWPPRA representatives staff neighboring booths at fairs and festivals. Taking advantage of the audience that students naturally attract, CWPPRA outreach workers use games to teach kids about wetland wonders and give away educational materials that explain the national importance of Louisiana’s coastal ecology, economy and culture. Wetland Watchers June 2008 Number 37 involve the wetland environment directly, such as planting trees, conducting clean-up campaigns or growing seedlings for wetland restoration through LSU‘s Coastal Roots program.

Other outreach activities extend awareness of wetland issues into the community; students have served as informal experts at fairs and festivals, secured donated trees for restoration, recorded spots for Radio Disney and mentored younger students on trips to the bayou. “The first time we staffed an information booth, we had 120 volunteers for 28 spaces,” Guillot says. “Students have that kind of enthusiasm for sharing what they’ve learned.”

Summer camp leads to future path

Can crawling through mud with a shovel in your hand be a life-changing experience? Just ask Gary Decossas. While planting marsh grass on an eroding shoreline as a participant in the 4-H camp Marsh Maneuvers, Gary decided to focus his future on wetland conservation.

“Marsh Maneuvers exposed me to the scope and complexity of wetland issues,” says Decossas, now a senior at Chalmette High School in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. “Going out into the marshes, I saw firsthand how humans influence Louisiana’s environment.” As a consequence, Decossas will pursue a major in coastal environmental science when he enrolls in Louisiana State University next September.

But Decossas is not waiting to contribute to Louisiana’s environment. After Marsh Maneuvers he committed 900 hours to volunteer service as a part-time member of America’s WETLAND Conservation Corps. His activities included securing plants to grow for restoration projects in a newly built school greenhouse and helping to found a club for horticulture and the coastal environment. “The club will let us students play a bigger role in restoring St. Bernard Parish’s vanishing wetlands,” says Decossas.

Director Mark Shirley says that over Marsh Maneuvers’ 20-year history, the experiential learning program has motivated many high school students across the state to pursue environmental studies and careers in science. “The goals of Marsh Maneuvers are to increase participants’ appreciation of the coast’s role in their lives and to inspire them to become part of future solutions for flood protection and coastal restoration,” says Shirley. “Kids have fun while learning about the scientific aspects of the coast. They go back home eager to share their experiences, expanding the program’s impact among their peers and in their communities.”

Learning, returning, teaching

Can a week of risking sunburn and swatting mosquitoes build a passion for coastal restoration? For WETSHOP participants, the answer is a resounding yes!

The program is sponsored by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF), with support from other agencies and funding assistance from the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program (BTNEP). “Each summer we take 20 classroom teachers and informal educators to the Barataria-Terrebonne estuary,” explains Angela Capello, LDWF’s aquatic education state coordinator. “There they observe coastal land loss firsthand and learn why the stakes are so high.”

The week is packed with tours, field activities and presentations from experts — often including CWPPRA’s outreach and education coordinator — in wetland ecology and coastal restoration. WETSHOP participants see how barrier islands form a first line of defense against storms and learn to identify plants that hold fragile soils together. They travel from freshwater into saltwater marshes, testing water quality and observing changing flora along the way. A fisheries management biologist discusses the seafood and sport fish that will vanish if Louisiana’s wetlands disappear. A tour of Port Fourchon, the major service base for oil and gas extraction in the Gulf of Mexico, demonstrates Louisiana’s importance to the nation’s energy supply.

“Frequently people outside of southeast Louisiana don’t understand the crisis we face,” says science teacher and WETSHOP volunteer Kathleen Nichols. “WETSHOP participants return home and educate others about our coastal problems and their solutions. Our enthusiasm is often contagious — after I became involved in wetland issues, several of my students enrolled in summer programs to learn more.”

Wetland lessons inspire all levels of learners

Can a single program conduct field trips and summer programs that inspire students to pursue careers in science, provide information and resources that assist teachers in developing curricula on wetland topics and collaborate with other organizations to develop sciencebased outreach material? It can if it has the vision of the Coastal Wetlands Education Program of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Sciences (PIES).

Each year 800–1,000 students in fifth through 12th grades participate in the program’s field trips. “For each trip a specific topic is selected on which to build a knowledge base,” says Dinah Maygarden, the education program’s director. “For instance, the topic could be saltwater intrusion. The science lesson might focus on how to test for salinity. As students canoe down the bayou, they would match their observations of flora and fauna with changes they measure in saline levels.”

Two-week-long summer programs immerse high school students in the world of coastal wetland science. Maygarden cites the number of applicants, including students who return as mentors, as one indication of the program’s success. Another is feedback from former participants now pursuing science degrees in college. “They report feeling like they have a very solid foundation for advanced work,” Maygarden says. For schoolteachers, the education program’s workshops help integrate coastal wetland issues into classroom science curricula. In addition, the program takes technical materials developed by PIES’ scientists, such as maps tracking coastal land loss, and translates them into attractive and easy-touse educational products. “An example is a series of posters we developed in coordination with the Barataria- Terrebonne National Estuary Program (BTNEP),” says Maygarden. “The posters illustrate how implementing a restoration project increased land mass on an eroding barrier island.”

Such partnerships are not unusual — indeed, the very existence of the PIES program relies on partners like BTNEP and Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation for funding. In turn, the program is educating an increasing number of Louisianans about coastal issues and raising public support for coastal restoration.