tillamook school district natural resource education

Tillamook School DistrictNatural Resource Education

Our Place

• Rural Coastal Community serving 2,100 students (700 High School Students)

• Economy: Trees, Cheese, and Ocean Breeze (Tourists)

• Land Value 1995 vs. 2007

• Largest Population of ELL students on the Oregon Coast

• Community that cares about kids!

Challenges

• Balancing Comprehensive Education with Limited Budget Dollars

• Providing training for staff that allows them to educate the workforce of the future

• Aging Population / 2nd Homeowner Community

Solutions?

• K-12 Natural Resource Education Program: Using the Local Community as an extension of the Classroom.

• Community Partnerships• University Partnerships: George Fox University,

University of Oregon, Oregon State University• Senior Service Learning Project

Natural Resource Education Program

• Why Natural Resources? Where we live…• Our Community has a great need to balance and

sustain our natural environment• Provides applications for classroom content

standards into a real project• Our Model is high school students

demonstrating what they have learned by teaching elementary students

Local Voice of Community• THS students work on fish habitat project

By Denise PorterAgriculture Correspondent

TILLAMOOK - For many students, learning by doing can be more powerful that just studying something out of a book.

And that learning can be even more effective when a student is actually doing something "real" and making a difference.

That's the idea behind the Natural Resources, Watershed and Forestry classes at Tillamook High School, where students are learning how to measure width, length, water velocity and slope hands-on as they study about forestry and get some physical education.

Career Related Learning

Career Related PartnershipsFor Students Moving Into the Workforce

• Stimson Lumber Company: Funding of a Natural Resource Coordinator (Service Learning Specialist)

Employing/Paying for Associate Degrees for Two-Four High School Students

• Hampton Industries: $52,000 for Teacher Staff Development

• TCCA: Donation of 80 acres for Natural Resource Studies.

• Oregon Dept. of Education: Service Learning

Service Learning Projects for College Bound Students

• Clair Thomas: Work with Advanced Placement Projects: GPS/GIS, Culvert Studies

• George Fox University Summer School Program • Astronomy / Earth Science Program with

University of Oregon and George Fox University: Working with elementary and middle school students on high level research in the community.

Senior Service Learning Program

• Graduation requirement of Tillamook High School: 30 hours of service + requirements of a Senior Project

• 200 Seniors

• Examples of Projects:

Forestry Art Projects

Pacific Oyster Co.

Using GPS Units

Questions?