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1. What inspired you to bring the Wyo Wonders curriculum into your classroom, and what difference has it made in your students’ learning?
I completed a virtual professional development with WAIC in my first year of teaching and had several teaching partners recommend it when I worked in Casper. When I started at Baldwin Creek as a writing teacher, we were looking for ways to connect our writing standards to science and social studies content, and the Outdoor Recreation unit seemed like a great fit.
2. Can you share a moment when a student connected personally with the Wyo Wonders content? What did that teach you as an educator?
There are many of those that I can talk about. I have a student who often talks about fishing with me, and after we read and wrote about how state trust land is leased to support education, he said to me, “I guess that explains why they are always farming on the state trust land where I fish.” Many kids have lots of exposure to the outdoors both for recreation and as a part of their lives. I’ve had 5th graders talk about the importance of moving their livestock onto public lands in the summer so their families can farm what the animals need to survive the winter. A kid was talking to me about how their family decided not to fill all their big game tags after the winter of 22/23 because they wanted to make sure the population bounced back enough so they could hunt the next year. I think kids show up with an understanding of stewardship and experience with Wyoming’s outdoors, so my role is just to explain how the systems work, local lodging tax, whether it’s state parks, or federal leasing.
3. How do you integrate writing and science with Wyoming’s natural resources and industries in your lessons?
As one of the writing teachers, I basically use the Wyo Wonders content as a resource for writing assignments. We have kids write about the unique roles of federal land management agencies, the differences between state parks and state trust land, and the importance of stewardship of Wyoming’s resources. One of our priority science standards is also how communities use science concepts to make decisions about resources. The Wyo Wonders curriculum provides lots of opportunities for discussion and research about that topic.
4. What advice would you give to other educators who want to make their teaching more place-based and relevant to Wyoming students?
I find that it’s much easier to teach using place-based content, and with a background in outdoor education, it’s really all I know. I find that by teaching standards using content that kids are familiar with, I get a lot more student engagement, especially from kids who might not be as psyched on school.
5. How has using Wyo Wonders changed your own perspective on teaching or your connection to the Wyoming landscape and community?
In social studies, 5th graders learn a lot about the three branches of government and the role of citizenship. It is helpful for them to have some examples of how these branches interact with each other in a way that students connect to. Students in Lander have lots of experience with federal public lands, so they already understand the importance of sustainable care, use, and development of these resources. My role is just to explain how these systems work using examples that kids can connect with.
Kids are surprised to learn how much of Wyoming’s education funding comes from state trust land, but they also recognize the importance of planning for the long term with these resources. They understand that it would be cool to increase development and get a new building and all new school supplies, but they also understand if that happened now, those resources would not be available when their kids became fifth graders.
They also love the idea of tourists spending money in town, and residents of Wyoming getting to keep that money. When I explain that not only do visitors spend money in Lander, they also pay taxes in the form of sales and lodging tax, the kids definitely recognize how beneficial that can be to an economy.
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