Path to Stewardship Self-Assessments
The above slideshow is a collection of student responses to the Path to Stewardship self-assessment, which students complete on the first and last days at IslandWood. They evaluate themselves under the four pillars of stewardship at IslandWood on the first day, and then revisit at the end of the week to see how much they have grown. At this point, students also add evidence to support their growth. These answers provide a glimpse into students’ critical thinking and self-evaluation of their goals.
Perspective Stories at the Harbor
The above slideshow is a collection of student perspective stories. Our field group had spent the day going to the Mill Worker’s Cabin, Blakely Cemetery, and Blakely Harbor, with an ethnobotany Each One Teach One along the way. At the harbor, students were instructed to write a perspective story from the perspective of a person living at the harbor or the land where IslandWood currently exists ~100 years ago. The story had to be at least 5 sentences, include a drawing, and incorporate observations they had made at any of the locations we had visited prior. Some students even chose to write their stories from the perspective of individuals whose graves they had seen in the cemetery. The students were able to connect their observations at many of these locations with one another and bring them together in a story. They showed strong critical thinking skills and perspective-taking ability.
Mindful Sound Mapping
These images show two examples of student-generated sound maps. The activity began with a mindfulness activity to prepare students to use their sense of hearing. During this activity, I encouraged the students to focus on one sound that stood out to them, and to try to visualize it in their minds, not focusing on what made the sound but how the sound would “look”. I gave as minimal scaffolding for the creation of the sound maps as I could, focusing on the logistical elements rather than the creative. Before generating the map, students discussed with a partner how they might differentiate visually between the sound of a woodpecker drilling into a tree and a frog croaking. Once they’d had this discussion, the students had a silent 5 minutes to visually represent the sounds they heard. They shared their findings with a partner at the end of the time and discussed the difficulties they had with visual representation of sound, as well as the benefits they felt from focusing on listening to what was going on around them without talking.
Solo Walk Revelations
Every week, I take my students on a solo walk. I feel that it is one of the most integral parts of the IslandWood experience, providing students with a rare opportunity to get out into nature alone, in a safe and controlled way. Moments of solitude are scarce during a week at the School Overnight Program, and many of my students report that it is one of their favorite activities of the week. While students wait for their peers to complete their journey, I have them journal about the experience to embrace the reflective mood. I usually ask some combination of the following questions:
- What was your favorite card?
- If you could create your own solo walk card, what would it say? Draw it!
- How did you feel on your solo walk?
- Why is it important to spend some time alone?
- Journal about your solo walk experience, using at least x sentences and a picture.
In the above photos, you can see responses to some of those journal questions (and others) demonstrating students’ takeaways from the experience.
Stewardship Deep Dive Journaling (Helping the Environment and Exploring Here & There)
On a week focused on taking stewardship to the next level, I decided to make my students’ journals my number one ally. Prior to this week, I’d been feeling really successful with getting my students to understand stewardship, recall its meaning, and reflect on their stewardship behaviors. When it came to students’ abilities to tell me why it was important, I fell flat – most of my students couldn’t get there with what I’d provided them. During a fruitful planning session with my mentor, we generated some specialized journal prompts to help students start their critical thinking process with these concepts of stewardship. In the above photos, you can see a few examples of student responses to these questions which encouraged them to think more deeply about the pillars of Exploring Here & There (frequently the toughest for students to grasp) and Helping the Environment (one that frequently doesn’t meet its full potential).
Julia Tandy Harnick 