[Editor’s Note: We all want to feel part of something bigger than ourselves. Sometimes the challenges we face within our classrooms, our libraries, our networks eclipse the fact that our Earth is in trouble, too! Critics decry the isolating tendencies of technology, as though the computer represents an obstacle inserted between the learner and “real life.” However, the Earthwatch experiences of thousands of educators and students speak eloquently to the contrary. There is little more “real” than the field research these students and teachers have conducted with Earthwatch. Their ability to harness technology to translate these life-changing experiences into opportunities for learning breathes new life into the adage “Think globally, act locally.” Previously in MMS, we’ve taken the position that by working together, school library/media specialists, classroom teachers, and technology coordinators can change the world. Earthwatch demonstrates that it may even be possible for these teams to save our world—and you can help!]

In July, 1997 I worked as an Earthwatch volunteer on an archeological expedition in Springerville, Arizona, with archeologists who were trying to identify ties between the prehistoric people who lived in Casa Malpais (see Figure 1) and the present day Hopi and Zuni cultures. This unique research experience was made possible through Earthwatch’s Education Awards Program and generous funding from Bell Atlantic.  As part of the project, our team made a commitment to develop a collaborative, Web-based project through which to share our experience with our students back home.

Our team, comprised of two library/media specialists and two classroom educators, planned to provide our students with a valuable research experience, exposing them to online and periodical resources, in addition to the basic print resources already familiar to them. We wanted to show how information literacy, hands-on science, and collaborative learning can extend the experience of a small group of educators to a potentially limitless audience through the integration of technology and information literacy skills into the curriculum.

Earthwatch Institute is a coalition of citizens and scientists working together to sustain the world’s environment, monitor global change, conserve endangered habitats, explore the heritage of our peoples, and foster world health and international cooperation. Since 1971, more than 8,000 educators have participated in Earthwatch Institute expeditions. Teachers, library/media specialists, administrators, and high school students make up 20 percent of the 4,000 volunteers who join Earthwatch Institute expeditions each year. In most cases, no special skills are required. The only requirements are a fascination with the Earth, a desire to know how it works, and the drive to help solve its problems.
 

Knowledge Building Through Information Literacy
I use the Big6 as the research process I teach kids at school and I’ve taught it through archeology every year since my participation at Casa Malpais in 1997. What a difference it makes! I explain to kids how the process that archeologists use to do their research is exactly the same as the process we use in the media center; then I prove it by showing videos from the dig or using a HyperStudio stack with pictures from the dig to explain each step. Then we compare what we would be doing in the media center. It makes it so “real” to the kids—it’s not just “library stuff” anymore.

One of the areas I thought was especially exciting about the project was the way kids were able to reach beyond our own schools (there were four schools involved) to get the information they needed for their particular topics. I had two girls in my school who wanted to learn about the Zuni language, and we couldn’t find anything anywhere. I sent out an e-mail message to someone who had a broken link to a Web page that sounded promising, but that person sent a message out to someone else, who passed it on to someone else, etc. In the end, I got an e-mail message from Christopher Lewis, a teacher and a Zuni Indian, in Zuni, New Mexico. His students offered to help my students. They even sent us a great videotape showing us their school and the area it is located in, including in it some of the lessons in which their students were learning to speak Zuni. I had a couple of other students who were researching rock art (see Figure 2). They sent an e-mail message to an Earthwatch scientist I’d met at an Earthwatch conference who leads an Earthwatch project that studies rock art and she answered the students’ questions. A few years ago, we would have never had access to resources like that!

Our Earthwatch team shared its excitement and knowledge with students in a constructivist manner. My 18 classes of fifth grade students from Mount Laurel Hartford School, 125 third graders from Plymouth, Massachusetts, 2nd graders from Framingham, Massachusetts, and 6th graders from West Virginia collaborated to create many of our Web pages. From the students, we learn that the dry climate of the American Southwest has helped preserve the antiquities that open the door to our understanding of ancient civilizations. Our student authors were careful to provide bibliographies so users know upon what authority the information was based. We also got a glimpse into what it is to be a real-life archeologist.

Chris Adams, one of the archeologists at Casa Malpais in Springerville, Arizona, was responsible for the reconstruction of the site’s “Great Kiva” and the enclosing wall. He also discovered that the area once thought to be an animal pen was actually a solstice calendar.

Asked what the most important or interesting part of his discovery and work was, Chris responds, “I would have to say it’s the people that I meet along the way, and that’s usually the Native American people. Usually when you meet them they don’t talk to you very much, but after you gain their trust they will sometimes take you to places that you didn’t know existed. That is what I treasure the most. Artifacts are one thing, but it’s the people themselves that are tied to these old areas that we go to that’s most important—their friendship—and knowing a little bit about them.”
 

Communications to the authors may be addressed to Shayne Russell, Library Media Specialist, Mount Laurel Hartford School, 397 Hartford Road, Mount Laurel NJ 08054; phone: 856/231-5899; fax: 856/222-1221; e-mail: srussell@voicenet.com; Meg Warren, Earthwatch Global Classroom & Collaborative Technology Projects, Earthwatch Institute; phone: 800/776-0188; e-mail: mwarren@earthwatch.org; Web: http://www.earthwatch.org.
 

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