The school year of 2007-2008 proved to be another successful school year for the Blair Community Schools/DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge Environmental Education partnership.  This program is now entering its third year and continues to grow and develop.  Following a spring of 2006 trip to the Prairie Wetlands Learning Center in Fergus Fall, Minnesota, school teachers and administrators began working with refuge staff to develop curriculum based trips to the refuge.  Students in 5^th grade, 7^th grade and high school environmental science made several trips a year to the refuge.  

For the fifth graders, they come to the refuge for programs on beavers, bald eagles and sensory awareness.  The year culminated in an outdoor education day featuring a full day of activities like canoeing, fishing, bird watching and pond studies.  The 7^th grade participated in programs on insect classification, bird observation, prairie study and visiting the Steamboat Bertrand museum at the refuge visitor center.  The high school environmental science class programs included an overview of the refuge, soil quality experiments, fire ecology, biomes and water quality experiments.  

This is a unique partnership because the content of the trips is teacher driven and done with support from refuge staff.  Support for this partnership continues to grow and several teachers are looking to expand their number of trips for next school year.  In total for the 2007-2008 school year, the refuge hosted 70 programs for a total of 2,013 student visits and 102 teacher visits. 

Thanks to a grant received from the Blair Community Foundation, teachers received resource guides on flora and fauna of the area.  The grant was also used to purchase field supplies for the students.

This year we hosted our first teacher workshop for the educators and administrators involved with the Blair School partnership.  We had a great turnout of 15 teachers.  Teachers were given a brief history of the National Wildlife Refuge System, DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, a tour of the refuge with resource staff, a demonstration of fish sampling techniques by the Columbia National Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office.   They also participated in activities to get them familiar with using their field guides.  The Friends of Boyer Chute and DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge sponsored the workshop and provided lunch. This workshop was met with positive reviews by the teachers and we hope to make this an annual event.

CONTACT:  SUE MCDONALD, VISITOR SERVICES MANAGER