Birds, beavers & Bob
Hands-off Seaweek At Discovery we offer hands-on activities in nature. So it’s been tough on us as well as the…
Valley and Channel schools
The CBJ school district lies within the lands of Áak’w & T’aakú Kwáans.From the cartographer’s perspective, these schools can be separated into “Valley” (or out-the-road?) schools and “Channel” (or J-D cities?) schools.
“Valley schools,” interpreted loosely, include Auke Bay on the west and Dzantik’i Héeni on the east. In addition to schools and the University, I’ve mapped a few associated facilities such as pools and libraries.
Discovery has a long history with these schools. Indeed, we were there for the founding of several. JuneauNature is working with the District to provide, for example, map-based historical retrospectives for every school site, emphasizing nearby field trip destinations (yellow boxes on these maps) where our naturalists have led student outings for decades.
Séet ka (Gastineau Channel) is home to a cluster of schools and associated facilities on Dzantik’i Héeni (Gold Creek) delta, and another on the island of Sayéik (Douglas). Red lines delineate subsheds, mapped during our wetland surveys for CBJ in 2014.
CBJ schools, NW to SE
Note, September 2020: Ultimately, all schools on the following list will be linked to pages with site-specific resources. For now, partly because most of Discovery’s partnerships are in the early grades, I’m beginning with elementary schools. However, with the exception of Dzantik’i Héeni, our middle and high schools are close to elementary schools. Descriptions of surrounding field trip sites should therefore be useful to educators in those neighboring schools. PS, Oct-2022, adding a page for the downtown high school.
Valley schools:
1) Auke Bay Elementary
2) University of Alaska Southeast
3) Mendenhall River Elementary
4) Floyd Dryden Middle
5) Sít’ Eetí Shaanáx (GV) Elementary
6) Thunder Mountain High
7) Riverbend Elementary
8) Dzantik’i Héeni Middle
Channel schools:
9) Yada.at Kalé (JD) High
10) Yaakoosgé Daakahídi
11) Montessori Elementary/Middle
12) Charter Elementary/Middle
13) Harborview Elementary
14) Sayéik (Gastineau) Elementary
Valley Schools
Auke Bay Elementary is in the watersheds of Lake Creek, and streams like Áak’w Noow and Waydelich. Tiny Bay Creek trickles along the edge of the school grounds and is accessed by trail from the playground. Few have recorded Lingít names, except Gaat Héeni, sockeye stream, draining Aak’w, little lake.
Five schools are in Áak’w Táak itself (greater M-word watershed), spanning roughly 100 square miles. Mendenhall River School [noTN?] sits on the edge of the large and beckoning USFS Recreation Area. Floyd Dryden and Sít’ Eetí Shaanáx (Glacier Valley) occupy the smaller Jordan and Duck Creek subsheds [noTNs]. Thunder Mountain and Riverbend are minutes from a footbridge accessing the confluence of Kaxdigoowu Héen (Montana) with Wushi l’ux’u Héen (Mendenhall).
Dzantik’i Héeni Middle School is not actually in its namesake (Gold) watershed but on Eix’gul’héen (Switzer), part of greater Shaanáx Tlein (Lemon) basin.
Channel schools
Four downtown schools are in 12-square-mile Dzantik’i Héeni (Gold Creek) watershed. Most urban of the CBJ schools, they’re correspondingly most challenging for quick access on foot to wild land, particularly in upper grades with quicker period rotations. But the new Seawalk is a huge asset for outdoor education.
Sayéik (Gastineau) is in X’áat’ T’áak (Bear Creek) watershed, best of our local schools for studies of deer habitat.
Few schools on earth are so privileged as ours for easy access to nearby wild country.
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