How CNPS Helped to Make a Splash
The Splash curriculum Life in Our Watershed: Investigating Vernal Pools began in 1997 as a modest effort by a CNPS volunteer to educate kids about vernal pools. From its humble beginnings, this watershed education program has become the celebrated Splash Program that has brought almost 9000 5th graders to explore the magic and the mystery of Sacramento's vernal pools. On November 22nd, Splash will be honored with the Governor's 2005 Environmental and Economic Achievement Award.
How did CNPS help to make such a Splash? In 1997 a friend invited CNPS member Eva Butler to work with her 5th grade class, to create an environmental project for Disney's annual Environmentality Challenge. A dearth of age-appropriate materials about vernal pools meant that Eva and her friend had to piece together all of the lessons and activities from scratch. Even so, the kids were enchanted by the dozens of critters and flowers they met and called by name. Their affection grew into a desire to advocate for the protection of their habitat at Mather Field.
The kids took a city bus to the County Board of Supervisors chambers. There they offered testimony about the importance of the Mather Field vernal pools, and why they should be protected from gravel mining and development. They won the respect of their elected officials, and a cash prize in the Disney contest. The class used the money to send a photographer up in a helicopter to take aerial photos of the vernal pools in their spring colors. The following year, the next class of fifth-graders sold vernal pool calendars (with help from CNPS members) and held a bake sale. With the proceeds they bought two signs to deter 4WD vehicles from driving through their beloved vernal pools. They also paid the Supervisors a visit.
This project won them the Environmentality Challenge Grand Prize! The students were the honored guests at the April 1999 Earth Day festivities at Disneyland. After riding a float in the Earth Day Parade, they met with directors of several state environmental and education agencies in Tom Sawyer's Fort! Boy, did those folks get an earful about conserving vernal pools! The Little Mermaid even belted out a song about vernal pools: "What's the word? Pools!" With their Grand Prize winnings, the class purchased 32 more signs for the park.
By this time the early venture into vernal pool education had become the crystal around which the Splash curriculum began to coalesce. It took a few years, and many hours, hands, heads and hearts to produce this celebrated curriculum, now in its third (and final!) version. (State CNPS President Carol Witham was a key contributor, as well as the production manager.) It could not have happened without the unwavering financial support of the Splash Consortium, comprised of three local agencies: The Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District; the Sacramento County Department of Water Resources; and the City of Sacramento Department of Utilities.
If you need more evidence that an individual can make a difference, look no further than one of Eva's first students. A fifth-grader who rode atop that Earth Day float in 1999, will undertake his Eagle Scout project this November at the Kitty Hawk Pools at Mather Field. His troop will make and install trail markers and several arched wooden bridges to provide better access for guided tours of this area. This project will allow thousands of kids, who are seriously "into vernal pools," to keep their feet out of them!
Eva claims that she always believed vernal pools were a great thing for kids. Nine years later, it appears that it might be kids who are great for vernal pools! The same vernal pools, which 5th graders once begged their elected officials to save, are likely to soon be protected within a preserve at Mather Field. As one mining advocate recently mused, "The moment those kids got involved, I knew we wouldn't be mining those pools." What were the chances that his sons would be students in a class selected (at random) to beta test the first Splash curriculum? Eva shares this thought: "While scientists might still debate the origin of vernal pools, one thing is certain: God is watching out for them".
Read an article about the Splash Program from the Sacramento Bee from Feb 26, '06 |
