Hatchery gets classroom grant

Flags tied to tree branches flap in the winter wind.

A circle of yellow encompasses an area just south of Jessup Mill Pond next to the Creston National Fish Hatchery’s freshly built picnic area and pavilion.

It doesn’t look like much, especially at this time of year, just different shades of brown—brush, leafless trees, downed trees, decaying stumps. Peering through the trees allows for a glimpse of the peaks that lead toward Columbia Falls. Evie Bradley sees a space with potential.

She envisions it as a place where students, teachers and families can learn to interact with nature like it’s, well, natural. Bradley is an administrative support assistant and develops the outreach and outdoor activities programs for the Creston Hatchery.

The flags she’s tied mark off one of the areas at the fish hatchery that could house a future outdoor classroom. The other potential space is next to the hatchery’s nature trail, behind the ranger’s building and above the actual hatchery itself. 

Experimental grant

Bradley is spearheading the installation of one of two Nature Explore Classrooms funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The other will be at the national training center in West Virginia. With grants of around $29,000 each, the fish and wildlife centers will work with Nature Explore, Youth Conservation Corps members and community volunteers. Together they will create a design and gather the materials to build a classroom.

One of the reasons the fish hatchery signed on to install a classroom is because they can cater to an older age group.

“At first we didn’t want to get into it,” she said. “Then we were told we could gear it to all grades of children.”

In fact, it’s one of the requirements of the grant. Working with YCC to install a classroom is the purpose of the grant. The main goal is to connect teenagers with what it’s like to work for the wildlife service.

The educational classroom that results from their partnership is a plus.

“It is the hope that it will be a model for other refuges and hatcheries on how they can engage youth,” said Suzie Worth, Nature Explore’s outreach director who is working with both facilities.

Bradley has worked with Tribal Youth Conservation Career students on various projects at Creston’s hatchery for the last three years.

It’s one of the reasons she thinks the hatchery was chosen to participate in the grant.

They’ve proven work with youth is important at their facility and it’s something they can do right.

Outdoor classroom

Nature Explore was created in 1998 through a partnership between the Arbor Day Foundation and the Dimensions Educational Research Foundation.

“Our mission is to connect people more fully with the world around them,” said Christine Kiewra, an education specialist at Nature Explore. “Give them a rich, nature-filled space.”

Kiewra said there are 100 certified Nature Explore Classrooms across the United States.

The classrooms include a variety of educational stations such as music stations, water stations, art-tables filled with pine cones, bark and seashells, fallen trees as balance beams, different sized stumps as stepping stairs and garden areas are just a few of the possibilities.

To be certified, a facility has to design their classroom space with Nature Explore first. Then, each facility must provide an area that has at least 10 of the stations outlined by Nature Explore’s guidelines, built with natural materials.

The staff must attend Nature Explore workshops and the classrooms must be designed to increase family awareness and involvement in nature education.

Certification must be renewed annually.

Nature Explore leaves the installation up to each facility.

“Sites choose to work with us,” Kiewra said. “We just support folks who have made it their mission to support connections.”

Connections with the environment is something Bradley said can be lacking with technology sucking families and the learning space indoors. Children are going outside to play less and less.

“Some research shows that kids are actually scared of going outside,” Bradley said. “It’s not about the classroom sites, it’s about going into the forest.”

What the classroom will look like in the end is still in the planning stages.

Planning Process

 In May, Nature Explore is scheduled to visit Creston with a design engineer and a workshop educator.

Before then it’s up to Bradley and the hatchery crew to mark out three potential sites where a classroom can be installed, free the sites of debris, and get the word out to teachers in the Flathead about the workshop.

Teachers who bring their students to the fish hatchery’s outdoor classroom will also be the one’s educating the students while they are there.

The workshop in May will give teachers and hatchery staff some guidelines on how to use the classroom sites as tools for nature education.

“It’s all self-guided,” Bradley said. “They can gear it toward what teachers want to educate their children on.”

Once the site design is finalized, the hatchery will order some of the installations from Nature Explore and will need volunteers to help gather and donate natural materials like antlers, bird wings, stumps and trees.

Tribal YCC students will come out in July for a few weeks to put the classroom together.

By spring 2012, Bradley is planning to be ready for the first groups of families and students.

Anyone interested in learning more about the project, volunteering their time to help build, or donating materials can call Evie Bradley at the Creston National Fish Hatchery at 406-758-6869.