Latino Outdoors
With the aim of increasing capacity for science literacy with a community partner organization, I collaborated with Alfonso Orozco, a graduate student of Teton Science Schools and a representative of Latino Outdoors, to recruit for, plan, and implement two outdoor education events for local Latino families in Grand Teton National Park.
Latino Outdoors strives to "connect familias and youth with nature, engage and inspire Latino leadership, empower communities to explore and share their stories in defining the Latino Outdoors identity." This is an especially pertinent mission within the Jackson community, which boasts both a strong Latino percentage and outstanding access to outdoor recreation. However, Latinos remain underrepresented among those who visit National Parks and use the outdoors to connect to place.
The first event consisted of a group exploration of Grand Teton National Park interspersed with "nature nugget" lessons given by myself and 3 fellow AmeriCorps members. Enlgish language skills among participants were mixed, and so all lessons were offered with Spanish translation. There was also ample time for casual conversation during the walk, which allowed everyone, participants and AmeriCorps, a unique experience to communicate in a language other than their native one. Millie, a GTNP ranger and fellow member of the Latino community was also present as a translator and an ambassador of the park. To recruit, I connected Alfonso with the Family Literacy program at Teton Literacy Center, which consists mainly of Latino families that receive English classes, tutoring, and other literacy services. Interest in the program was so high among this group that no further community recruitment was needed to reach capacity.
Latino Outdoors participants practice identifying conifers after I gave a "meet a conifer" lesson. They're using take-home identification cards that I created to identify them by needle shape.
The second event took place at the Murie Museum on the Graduate campus of Teton Science Schools. Since focus group meetings with Latino representatives have revealed confusion surrounding park regulations as a barrier, the aim of this session was to educate families about these as well as safety topics like bear spray usage and awareness of large animals while in nature. More hands-on activities were offered to the younger set (aged 4-12). To enable families to continue to connect to place via the outdoors, GTNP generously donated teo park passes to be raffled off to attendees. Additionally, AmeriCorps members created a booklet for each family to take home as a lasting resource with information such as a day hike packing list, basic plant and animal ID, and a hiking speed calculator.
Overall, this project was an immensely valuable experience, and one that I believe effectively met the needs of the Jackson community while building capacity for science literacy with a partner organization.
AmeriCorps member Emma gives a stunning performance as a moose on the loose while participants practice using bear spray.
Interest-based tutoring
My capacity-building project at Teton Literacy Center focused on creating a template for project-based tutoring lesson plans that are tailored to individual student interest. Research has shown connections between interest and motivation. When students are offered a choice of activities, they feel less external control and more intrinsic motivation. There are also less off-task behaviors when students are able to work on topics that interest them. So, I worked to create several interest-based learning projects, tested them out, and wrote up steps forwards that TLC can use as templates for future lesson planning.
At right, Fernando and his tutor look over the lesson plan. After assessing his skills and interests with a survey, I designed the project around his expressed interest in humor and dance. Fernando, an ELL students, is working on fluency and self corrections in tutoring. A great way to work on these skills is through poetry. So, I pulled a collection of Shel Silverstein poems for him to read and adapted a tic-tac-toe board project in which each square has an activity to complete using the poems from the collection. This way, Fernando can choose which activities he wants to dive into in order to get three in a row. The goal is that he takes ownership over and delves deeper into the skills he's working on, and not just that he gets three in a row.
Here's Fernando performing one of his chosen activites from the project, which was to "choose your favorite poem and perform it for a staff member." He memorized the whole thing in 15 minutes and couldn't wait to show us!