Environmental Lessons

May 20, 2007

By Will Elliott

Frontiersman

WASILLA - Field trips are a common spring treat for Valley students eager to get outside after a winter spent indoors. Snowshoe Elementary students got to experience something decidedly uncommon last week, as nearly the entire school- all grades except Kindergarten -relocated to the Palmer Hay Flats for an all-day ecology fair.

More than 400 Snowshoe students, along with teachers, parents and Alaskans for Palmer Hay Flats volunteers, swarmed the hay flats access off Hayfield Road Thursday.

Fourteen presenters, some private, others from state agencies and community groups, ran workshops and activities to teach students about ecology and the Palmer Hay Flats ecosystems. Students and parents peered through microscopes, hiked the flats and ridge-top trails, handled specimens, and met Artemis, a great horned owl from the Bird Treatment and Learning Center in Anchorage.

&#8220The real stars are the presenters themselves. We're so grateful to them,” said Cindy Neubauer, APH member and a Snowshoe parent.

Dr. Bob Neubauer of APH spearheaded the event.

Dr. Neubauer said the fair was something he'd wanted to make happen for a long time, but lacked the resources until joining nonprofit Alaskans for Palmer Hay Flats.

The group contacted Snowshoe fifth-grade teacher Lura Hegg, who had long made ecology a big part of her curriculum.

Hegg, who was named a &#8220BP Teacher of Excellence,” marshaled other teachers behind the event, while APH booked presenters and handled the logistics of moving an entire school's worth of students and chaperones through the stations smoothly.

&#8220The goal was to get these kids to love the flats, and not injure them later on,” Dr. Neubauer said. &#8220Hopefully they'll take one thing away from today to remember the rest of their lives. If you can get that, what else can you ask for as a teacher?”

Snowshoe Elementary Principal Suzanne Cyr called the fair a thorough success. APH organized a similar event for Snowshoe students last year, but it lacked this year's array of activities.

&#8220We haven't done anything of this size before,” Cyr said.

Students of Lura Hegg's fifth-grade class ran their own workshops for fellow students.

The class led other students through experiments in run-off and leaching, to demonstrate the importance of healthy stream banks as a barrier to pollution.

Hegg's class then helped students put their findings into practice by leading tree planting and revegitation work along the banks of Cottonwood Creek.

&#8220We're here learning so when we grow up we can help the environment,” said fifth-grader Josh Wolfe.

Cyr said that kind of involvement is important for Snowshoe students, the majority of whom live near the flats.

&#8220This is their area, but a lot of kids don't really know what the hay flats are. For it to really be theirs, they have to get out and experience it.”

Cindy Neubauer hoped some students would walk away from the event with more respect for the hay flats.

The night before the fair, signage and other improvements to the Scout Ridge trail above the flats were vandalized, Neubauer said, just days after volunteers had visited the area as part of a creek clean-up.

Signs were shot or torn down, new trash was dumped near the creek, and ATVs drove on areas closed for erosion control.

Snowshoe teacher Holly Sharrow suggested that events like the fair were a good way to halt such abuses.

&#8220A lot of kids four-wheel on the flats. This was a real eye opener to them about how interconnected and fragile the environment is. With what they've learned today, they'll still be able to recreate, but now they can do it more responsibly.”

Sharrow also felt that because the fair helped students better understand the flats, in the future, the impetus to recreate responsibly would come from within, rather than merely as a response to outside regulation.

The fair encouraged students to see the flats' intrinsic worth, Sharrow said, which leads students to treat the area respectfully for its own sake.

&#8220Nature is part of our heritage as Alaskans. It's part of our lifestyle here, and so we need to treat it as something valuable,” she said. &#8220Otherwise, we'll lose it.”

Alaskans for Palmer Hay Flats maintains a Web site at www.palmerhayflats.org.

Contact Will Elliott at 352-2252 or will.elliott@frontiersman.com.