• Campus United Way Campaign Forges Toward Feb. 15 Deadline
  • Panel Urges Grad Student Aid
  • Faculty Diversity Reported Weak
  • Sedgwick Outreach Lets Kids Revel in Nature
  • Research: Race Awareness Malleable
  • Author Finds Happiness in Talk
  • Regents Set Up Tuition Reduction Program for Certain Nonresidents
  • Civic Activism a Way of Life for Kennedy
  • Campus Contract and Grant Awards
  • Campus Notes
  • Credits
    •

    Sedgwick Outreach Lets Kids Revel in Nature

    By VIC COX

    There's no mistaking the excitement on both sides as the fifth-graders from Shelia Whitefield's class at Adams Elementary School tumble off their bus from Santa Maria and into the arms of five Sedgwick Reserve docents. Several youngsters run to where their docents wait to take them on the day's adventure at the former ranch among the rolling green hills of the Santa Ynez Valley.
    On this sunny, brisk day last month, the students divided into groups and carried tools to plots near a dry stream bed where they were learning how to grow plants native to the reserve. A deerweed seedling, two acorns, and wildflower seeds went into prepared ground under the guidance of the docents, each of whom had been trained in restoration ecology at the reserve.
    "They really love this project," Whitefield said as she surveyed her class of mostly Mexican-American students. "They write thank-you notes to the docents, and have learned to make haiku poems, too."
    That is the kind of knowledge mix that the "Kids in Nature" program aims to foster, according to co-creator Jennifer Thorsch, a botanist. Reserve Director Mike Williams and docent chief Nancy Emerson joined with Thorsch and Mark Holmgren, of the UCSB Museum of Systematics and Ecology, to launch "Kids" last year. They shaped it into a hands-on project to help teachers and students from UCSB partner schools in the North County learn about the natural world while aiding the reserve's restoration efforts.
    With the help of the docents and a team of UCSB students, the Faculty Outreach Grant-funded project takes about 240 students on five trips to Sedgwick and one to campus during the school year.
    Each teacher also has two computer simulations custom-designed for plant identification and understanding Sedgwick's ecology that help them prepare their classes for the trips.
    The students will use their new skills, Thorsch said, to prepare scientific reports and artwork for presentation on a final day of celebration at Sedgwick, which will occur on May 14 this year.