Environmental Science Class

Alzar School is in full swing now! This is the end of our first full week of academics. The students have attended every class four times this week and invested hours in learning engaging and -modestly speaking- mind blowing information. I could spend blogs on blogs talking about that mind blowing content in each class, but I wanted to spend today just discussing one: Environmental Science with Reed.

This Environmental Science unit flows nicely into our English and Spanish curriculum, as well. We’re all talking about a sense of self and a sense of place. Who are we? And how does our home affect our understanding of ourselves? In Reed’s class, the question is: “What do we know about our new home?” The reality is that most of them know very little, and for that reason, Reed has decided to re-imagine our Environmental curriculum to be much more place-based. The focus is not on deep water currents in the Atlantic or tornados in Kansas. The focus is central Idaho. It’s Valley County. It’s Alzar School.

So, in Reed’s lab last week, he asked the kids to steep in “4 meditations” in the woods on campus. He says that we are often stuck in one lens of perception. That, as writers we describe. As artists we paint and draw, and as scientists we define. Every one of these forms of “meditations” is valuable; however, taking the time to investigate and experience a place through multiple lenses will help one to create a much deeper sense of place. His 4 meditations were:

• Naturalist’s: The student spends time attempting to accurately and scientifically analyze and describe one tree. So, measuring the trunk’s diameter or shape of its leaves.
• Ecologist’s: He or she attempts to acknowledge all the connections that tree has with all other biotic and abiotic aspects of its environment, i.e. the wind, fungus, shrubs, birds, sunlight.
• Artist’s: Each person draws their tree as they see it and as it makes them feel.
• Spiritualist’s: The individual gives thanks to that tree for its existence.

Between each meditation, the students came together with Reed to discuss how their perspectives changed as they changed their focuses, how they felt differently, and which ones felt the most natural to them. Ultimately, the students came away with the lessons Reed had been hoping for: a focused meditation on nature and one’s environment invites deep compassion – an interest in and a love for that which sustains us.

Building on the past week’s lessons, yesterday Reed and his class took a tour around campus to identify some of the plant-life we enjoy here. They identified five trees, six shrubs, and a few forbs. They discussed its medicinal uses, investigated its smells, and tasted its sap or bark or leaves. They shared stories. Reed told them wild things they’d never known. He explained that this same species of conifer found on our campus – the Ponderosa pine – was once used in nuclear testing to determine the adverse affects nuclear bombs would have on forests… I think we all can imagine the outcome. He explained that when sagebrush is damaged, it releases a chemical that warns nearby sagebrush plants that danger may be coming so they can start channeling toxins into their leaves. For that reason, ungulates (antelopes and deer) tend to eat while moving upwind so that they can eat ‘unsuspecting’ sagebrush with lower toxicity in its leaves.

Today the students had a quiz on all these plants that are native to our property – Reed says they nailed it.

I asked Reed where he is going with the rest of the unit, and it’s apparent he has big and equally impacting dreams. He wants to build towards a comprehensive understanding and appreciation of the forest and grass ecology in this area. Ultimately, they will choose and plant a native and edible forb on our property. This will help to diversify the already beautifully rich land we live on, as well as provide food for future Alzar students, and through it all they will continue to develop their own sense of place while simultaneously creating it. How amazing is it to think of our students taking this curiosity and passion back to their families and their homes?