>>We found a dead mouse. >>Did anybody get a picture? >>Narrator: Four times a year, the Glacial Ridge Wildlife
Refuge becomes a living classroom for students from J.A.
Hughes Elementary School in Red Lake Falls, Minnesota. >>Boy: Yeah, it's a burnt frog. >>Woman: Let me see. >>Narrator: Originally
prairie wetlands, this 35,000-acre parcel
once hosted hundreds of unique plant and animal species. >>Man: It looks way
different, doesn't it? >>All: Yeah. >>Narrator: But decades
of crop production an
d cattle grazing have eliminated
much of the biodiversity here. >>Man: And what do you
think it's going to look like in the spring when we come out? >>Huge grasses, very tall. >>Narrator: In 2004, The Nature
Conservancy bought some of the land, turning it into the largest prairie and wetland restoration
project in U.S. history. >>When you get to the water! >>Narrator: And they invited the
school to help them study the area. >>17 meters. >>Mike: We're basically
studying how a prairie emerges, so
we're taking temperatures,
water, air, pH readings, just a whole lot of data. >>Woman: We know the
road is to the north. What direction is the
wind coming from? >>South, that way. >>Together: North, South, East. >>Woman: So the wind
is coming from the... >>All: East. >>Deberah: We had access to
this wonderful learning site, and we wanted to be able
to use it to its fullest. And we had very little,
very little technology. And what we had was very outdated. >>Deberah: Face it to the wind. >>Narrat
or: With a technology grant,
they got portable computers... >>Mike: Try right now
and see how to do it. >>Narrator: ...temperature
probes and other devices that improved the quality
of their field data. >>Ryan: We use the computer to
take water and air temperature, and then some people have
cameras just to help us in case our pictures get
deleted on the paint cans. >>We're collecting
the air temperature for Celsius and Fahrenheit. >>Mike: Are you still
reading Celsius? >>Yep. >>Mike: Okay, why d
on't you switch? >>Let's switch it. >>Mike: Our reading
for Fahrenheit is what? >>43.8. >>Mike: Okay, 43.8. Do we have that documented? >>Deberah: Technology out at
Glacial Ridge adds accuracy. Before, we were using manual
thermometers and our data would be so varied, whereas now when
we're using temp probes, it's on and we know it's on. We don't have to worry about
the data being inaccurate. >>Write down 6.57. >>No, wasn't it six seven? Celsius. >>Narrator: Each student is
responsible for searc
hing out and becoming an expert on a few
specific plants and animals. >>Zack: We all have certain
organisms that we have to use and see to identify their tracks and what
they look like and what they eat and what's their habitat
and stuff like that. >>Deberah: They know that
they are the go-to person for their whole group
on that organism. >>Oh, look at them! >>Deberah: So when they're
researching their organisms, they do it with a purpose. They don't want to look silly to
their peers, and so it
has meaning. >>Narrator: Fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-graders visit
the Glacial Ridge together. They work in small teams with older
students teaching younger ones how to collect the data. >>Matthew did our water sample. Next, we are going
to look at our plots. >>Deberah: The sixth-graders
are the lead, and they take that very seriously. In fact, one of this year's
fifth-graders, he was so serious, and he was telling me so much that
he had found and seen and observed. And I said, "Wow, what's going
on?" And he said, "I had to get serious. I'm a leader next year." >>Okay, Elidia, you can come
and take your picture now. >>Deberah: You know, every
time we go out there, we come back with more questions. >>Mike: In nature, how
do the fires start? Anybody? >>All: Lightning. >>Mike: Very good. Now, do we know if we're absolutely
right or wrong on these answers? >>All: No. >>Mike: How could we find out? >>Web search. >>Internet. >>Mike: Websites, Internet. Do we have some sources
that are really
close to us that we could contact,
maybe using an e-mail? >>The Glacial Ridge people. >>Mike: Glacial Ridge people, right. >>Narrator: Back in the classroom,
students discuss their findings and write a report that
is shared with scientists from The Nature Conservancy. >>Deberah: So we can
say the temperature-- >>6.2 to 7.5. >>No, to 8. >>Narrator: With their
tablets connected to the Web, students can access the
latest scientific information and participate in global projects. >>Deberah: I don't
use
a science textbook. With sites like Science NetLinks
and NASA's educational modules and Journey North and
JASON, we have access to standard-based-caliber lessons
that use best-practice methods. If we get a science textbook, it's outdated by the
time we bring it home. So this stuff is always current, and
it's usually Internet-interactive. It's got links to all
over, and they learn a lot. >>Chris: We brought our
global-positioning system, and we're going to go track the
outside perimeter of th
e flow that we measured yesterday. >>Deberah: I think that
the use of technology helps to create self-learners,
and that's our goal. We want them to be
independent lifelong learners, and the more they're able to
do that, the more we like it. >>Deberah: We need to
talk about predictions. What are we going to expect
to see when we go back to Glacial Ridge next time? >>Narrator: For more
information on what works in public education,
go to Edutopia.org.
Comments