Essential Question
/ Inquiry
How can technology assist
students as they explore the human and environmental impacts of wildfire
and communicate their findings?
Introduction
Wildfires occur in many parts
of our world, and provide an excellent opportunity for students to study
local and global interdisciplinary issues using technology. Colorado
has for several decades been one of the fastest growing states in the
USA. As more people move to Colorado, they are increasingly living on
lands vulnerable to wildfires—in the grasslands and dry mountain
foothills.
On October 29, 2003, with
the day’s temperature at 80°F, relative humidity at only 8%,
west winds of 20-25 mph and gusting to 30-35 mph, conditions were perfect
for wildfire. At 12:42 p.m., a 911 call alerted emergency personnel
to the Cherokee Ranch fire. Several wildfires broke out along the Colorado
Front Range, including one between Denver and Colorado Springs, in northern
Douglas County. The fires threatened land owned by the historic Cherokee
Ranch*, as well as the county of Denver, and the neighborhoods of
Castle Pines and Highlands Ranch. The area is inhabited by various species
of wildlife including a herd of buffalo, and is adjacent to property
containing new housing developments. The wildfires burned a total of
just under 1,000 acres. The cost to suppress the fires was approximately
$262,000.
In September 2004, nearly
a year after the fire, a group of 111 seventh and eighth grade students
and their teachers from Mountain Ridge Middle School in Highlands Ranch
began a formal scientific investigation of the Cherokee Ranch fire.
They sought to determine the fire’s impact and to report their
findings to stakeholders – county officials, firefighters, landowners,
and community associations. The initial study is scheduled to conclude
in spring 2005 when students will personally and formally present their
findings to these same stakeholders in the community.
Mountain Ridge
Middle School, Highlands Ranch, Colorado, above, where the teachers
and students hailed from for this study.
The success
of the field study day was the result of numerous hours of effort by
teachers, parent volunteers, administrators, and even the school district’s
lawyers, securing permission for the students to enter the field site.
Ms. Deb Fox-Gliessman, above, is the history/geography teacher on the
project. The idea for this project came after she attended a Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) course at the University of Denver and shared
what she had learned with John McKinney, the science teacher on her
teaching team. McKinney wanted to find a way to teach students about
wildfire using the Cherokee Ranch Fire. A study was born!
Procedure:
How 111 Students Can Conduct a Scientific Study
Overview
At Mountain
Ridge Middle School, students are organized into teams where the students
on the team take their core classes with a team of teachers. This particular
study is being led by the four core subject teachers on the 7/8E team
- Deb Fox-Gliessman (history/geography), John McKinney (science), Ann
Clark (language arts), and Kathy Granas (mathematics). The various components
of the study require learning, knowledge, skills, and support in all
of the students’ core content areas. Additionally, the study employs
extensive use of spatial technology--both Global Positioning Systems
(GPS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), as well as Internet-based
research, word-processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications.
The interdisciplinary nature of the study allows for significant differentiation
based on student knowledge, skills, abilities, and interests. It exposes
students to real-life situations where their school learning can be
put to practical use.
The study’s four phases
include research into the history and behaviors of wildfires, and identification
of the specifics of the Cherokee Ranch wildfire, field work in the burn
area including data collection and observation, data analysis, and the
preparation of reports and presentations (technical and scientific writing,
PowerPoint, and oral presentations).
The study was spread throughout
the school’s academic year. It began in early September and is
scheduled to conclude in early May. Classroom instruction related to
the study is incorporated into normal curriculum for each of the four
content areas and “Fire Study” work days have been arranged
so that students have blocks of time to do field research, library research,
data analysis, report writing, and presentation preparation.
Expertise
Teachers and students involved
in this study are exploring unknown intellectual territory, and the
teachers thought it important to model for students the use of community
experts and resources. In assessing the need for support, the teachers
first determined their own areas of expertise and then sought to fill
in the gaps. They enlisted a number of outside resources to assist with
the study including US Geological Survey geographers, firefighters,
county and community representatives, and parents.
Pre-teaching
Two of the study teachers
(Granas and Fox-Gliessman) had attended several GIS training events
geared for educators, including a week-long institute conducted by GIS
ETC in 2002 and a week-long institute entitled GeoTech Colorado 2004.
They understood the value of spatial technologies in education and for
this study.
Prior to entering the field
study phase of the project, students were introduced to the Cherokee
Ranch fire area by teachers and firefighters during a half-day field
trip. Teachers toured the students around the area pointing out general
facts about the environment, local development, plants and wildlife,
and the geological and human history of the region. Firefighters demonstrated
firefighting techniques and equipment used to fight the Cherokee Ranch
fire, and told students of their own personal experience in fighting
this particular fire. In language arts, students received specific instruction
in the formulation of questions and interview techniques to support
their research into the nature of wildfire and both the human and the
environmental impacts of wildfire.
Additionally, students received
instruction in fire behaviors, geographic and scientific inquiry, data
collection (qualitative and quantitative), and measurement methods.
Technical reading and writing were introduced prior to field study and
during the research and data analysis phases. Students were taught to
use GPS receivers to record their location in the field where data and
observations were collected. They also used ESRI’s ArcView GIS
in order to perform data analysis and map generation for the study.
Research shows increased
student interest in a subject provides real-world relevance to the subject,
and enhances student critical thinking skills (Baker and White 2003;
Kerski 2003; Wigglesworth 2000). GPS and GIS instruction captured student
interest by allowing students to visualize better how their field study
data would be transformed into a scientific study and presentation.
Using GIS, students could map the field sites atop topographic maps
and aerial photographs of the area, hyperlink ground photographs to
each site, and examine the spatial relationship between variables. GIS-based
analysis allowed the students to examine relationships between burn
area, elevation, slope, direction of slope, land use, vegetation, recovered
vegetation, watershed, roads, housing, wind direction, and other variables.
Students examined
maps of the Cherokee Ranch burn area that they received from the Douglas
County GIS department. Students will soon be able to generate their
own maps when they finish inputting their data.
In this area students examine
aspects of the fire and display their work for others. Firefighters
who fought the Cherokee Ranch fire provided the burn photographs. Other
photographs show students learning about the fire from teachers and
firefighters on their initial trip to the burn area.
Phase
1: Field Study
Students were organized into
20 field study groups of 5-6 students each. With the permission of the
land owners and the school district, and accompanied by some of the
firefighters they had met with a week earlier, students spent an entire
school day in the burn area collecting data. One of the most unique
aspects of the project was that the students were the first research
group to be allowed into the burn area. Each student took great care
to disturb the environment as little as possible.
The burn area was divided
into a grid to avoid duplication of field data collection and to cover
as much area as possible. Each line of longitude became a transect for
data collection. The transects were spaced .05 minutes apart, and each
group used GPS units to find and follow its assigned line of longitude,
collecting data every 100 meters along its line of longitude. Each group
collected data at six to ten locations in the burn area. Data related
to the geological and geographic features, fire damage, and re-growth
of the area were documented in writing and with cameras. Information
was carefully entered onto data collection sheets and stored in a field
study group file along with the names of the group members. Parent volunteers
who had attended a brief training session about the project accompanied
the groups into the field.
GPS
units, field notes, and cameras ready for the students to use in the
wildfire burn area.
Above left: Joseph Kerski, USGS Geographer, met with
students prior to the trip to discuss the real-life applications of
the work they were about to do, career opportunities, why spatial analysis
is relevant to society, and how federal agencies map and display wildfires
(www.geomac.gov). He then joined
them in the field to support their efforts. He told them that they were
involved with something that most college-aged students were not even
doing! Above right: Parents meet with John McKinney to prepare prior
to the start of the field study day. Parents accompanied field study
groups to offer support and guidance as needed.
