What a pleasure to hang out with teachers again!
On our first evening walk from the Sunny Point wetlands access, teachers had an unexpected opportunity to meet Jim and Mary Lou King. Jim is father of Alaskan trumpeter swan research, and Mary Lou, the mother of Seaweek—a 51-year old program that ultimately went statewide, and inspired founders of Discovery Southeast. ● Suzanne Sauerteig photo
From June 10 to 13th, 2021, Steve Merli, Kelly Sorensen and I hiked, journaled and goat-watched with the dedicated educators of Áak’w & T’aakú Aaní. It’s been awhile since we could gather physically! Anticipating that teachers have had their fill of virtual and even traditional lecture forums, this summer’s Discovery ‘seminars’ were ENTIRELY OUTSIDE! Over the course of 4 days, we divided our attention between places flat and steep: 2 days on estuaries and 2 days on colluvial toeslopes.
Instead of submitting the traditional lesson plan for recertification credits, this year we’ve asked for journals. They can take any form, from sketchbooks to photocopied rite-in-rain field notes, to elaborate digital slideshows. Kelly set up a template in google slides, with her own journal as a model. An advantage of this format is it can double, as either personal archive or public presentation.
My own course journal is a 60-page pdf that chronicles our adventures and summarizes the ecology of places flat and steep. The Flats; we can do em by now in our sleep. But steep places? Hmmmmm! Not until covid reined-in my daily bino-sweeps to the ~100-acre ramparts of Goatlandia did I recognize this under-researched blind spot for what it is: the unviewed viewshed of Lingít Aaní
Kelly Sorensen’s journal is in Google Slides, a format increasingly used by teachers.
