Teaching and Learning

Mazama science students provide hands-on biology lessons to second-graders

Taking turns, second-graders from Ferguson Elementary School carefully filled their test tubes with water and mud from an outdoor wetlands classroom at Mazama High School. Their next step: Look at the water and mud under a microscope.

Students in Laura Nickerson’s biology classes hosted their third group of second-graders last week for a biology field trip and lesson at the school’s Wards’ Wetlands.

The second-graders planted milkweeds, a native species that provides habitat to the monarch butterfly, and then studied plant diversity, compared the temperatures of air, soil and water, and looked at macro-invertebrates under a microscope.

“I think it’s good for elementary students to study this,” said Catherine Carringer, a freshman biology student who helped the second-graders. “It gives them an awareness of the world around them, and I think that’s very important.”

Nickerson, who started the program three years ago, thinks it’s important to expose younger students to hands-on science activities. The schools participating in the program are feeder schools to Mazama High School.

So far, Mazama students have hosted the wetlands field trip and lessons for Shasta, Peterson and Ferguson elementary schools. Stearns Elementary School second-graders are planning a visit in the spring.

Press release provided from the Klamath County School District.