Adventures in science
By Hannah Benoit
Day 1: Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2006
After traveling from Guyaquil, Ecuador, to Rio Chico, we finally arrived around 5 p.m. We unloaded our bags from the bus and hauled the 100-plus pounds of supplies that we brought down. We have until January 3, when the kids get back from Christmas break, to create the laboratory and classroom. This entails traveling to ... Puerto Lopez to purchase supplies,... setting up the computer that we are donating, ... installing several elementary science encyclopedia programs, as well as creating and storing lesson plans....
--From the teaching journal of Breann Day '07
Journeying more than 3,000 miles from Norton to a small coastal village in South America was just the beginning of the adventure for Breann Day '07 and Evelyn Sanders '08. The pair was soon to embark on a three-week exploration of the natural sciences with 24 Ecuadorian schoolchildren, and they couldn't wait to get started.
Their passion for science would turn out to be contagious. Little wonder, since they shared Nobel laureate Isidor Isaac Rabi's sentiment that science is "a great game ... the playing field is the universe itself."
The task they had undertaken was to implement a science program in Rio Chico's small, under-funded school system--and to make sure it continued after they left. They wanted to help the children develop a basic understanding of scientific concepts by doing hands-on experiments and going on field trips to explore the rich biodiversity of their native land--methods that were entirely new to the Ecuadorian kids.
But if science is play, it was also a lot of work for the two Wheaton students, who developed the curriculum themselves, raised the money to purchase microscopes, telescopes, books and supplies, and also worked with the school's teachers to help them understand effective methods of instructing children in the sciences.
The visit to Rio Chico was a sort of homecoming for Evelyn Sanders. In 2003, after graduating from high school, she had taken a year off to study in Ecuador. She loved her host family, but not the study-abroad program. So she decided to stay with the family in the village of Rio Chico and work on a project of her own.
Sanders began teaching English in the local schools, taking on six classes in three different elementary schools--plus an evening class for adults. With no books or supplies at her disposal, she relied on conversational methods and her own ingenuity.
"It was great working with all the kids, but I learned how hard it is for teachers in Ecuador," recalled Sanders, who hails from Round Hill, Virginia. "The lack of funds and scarcity of teachers made for a very difficult learning environment. During my stay, there were four national strikes--including one hunger strike--for higher teaching wages and better school conditions."
Sanders stayed for nearly eight months, and left with a resolve to come back and help the schools in a more enduring way.
She enrolled at Wheaton in 2004, and soon started bouncing ideas around with Breann Day, a friend and former high school classmate. Day, a psychobiology major from Middletown, Maryland, spoke some Spanish and loved the idea of teaching science in Ecuador: "I needed a capstone project," she said, "and this was right up my alley, since I also have an interest in developmental psychology." Sanders' dual majors in Hispanic studies and anthropology formed the perfect complement to Day's science background.
Arriving in Rio Chico last December, Sanders and Day transformed part of a 10-by-20-foot computer room into a lab and classroom. A sheet of metal served as a tabletop and, because the windows had no glass, the students bought sealable boxes and bed sheets to protect the equipment from dust. The teaching staff at the Jorge Pin Castillo School wanted to keep the classes small, so the school director suggested that Sanders and Day work only with the older students--grades five through seven.
"The teachers were really helpful," said Day. "They gave us an hour of class time a day for each grade, which was significant, because they only have four and a half hours of instruction time each day." The computer teacher assisted them in the classroom, giving up his own class time for the science classes.
Day 9: Thursday, Jan. 4, 2007
Today was our first day of class. It went really well. We decided to start with the very basics: "What is science?" "What does a scientist do?" "This is a microscope," and the rules for using a microscope. We also did an activity ... where the students had to figure out how to balance 12 nails on the top of a nail. We used this exercise to demonstrate how scientists use trial and error to problem-solve, and that sometimes it is necessary to look outside the box to find answers.
In the ensuing weeks, the children and their visiting teachers immersed themselves in science, with the classes conducted entirely in Spanish. They studied crystal formation by making rock candy, hypothesized about the density of objects in a float sink, examined tiny sea creatures under a microscope, and created "volcanic eruptions" with baking soda and dyed vinegar.
"The kids loved it--they were very excited," said Day. "We had them out of their seats most of the time, doing experiments." Added Sanders: "When it was time for science class, they would all come running over from the other building."
This interactive, hands-on approach was new to the Ecuadorian children, who usually learn by rote. "The teacher writes it on the board, and they write it down," said Day.
By sparking an interest in science, Sanders and Day also hoped to motivate students to stay in school. In Ecuador, schooling is compulsory--and free--only through grade seven. Funding for education has dwindled in recent years, Sanders said. Teacher pay is low, and parents have to foot the cost for many things, from soccer balls to school repairs. Often, parents can't afford to send all their children to school at the same time. The pressures to drop out are intense.
"Parents' acceptance of their children's independence and desire to keep studying is a crucial part of what these science classes were started for," Sanders and Day wrote in their project report.
In communicating with teachers and parents, the Wheaton students were always sensitive to cultural differences.
"During a teacher-parent meeting, Bree and I presented our plan to include field trips in the classes," Sanders said. This was also a new concept to the Ecuadorians. In fact, some of the schoolchildren had never left their hometown.
"I knew that it would be culturally insensitive, to the point of being rude, if we did not ask the parents to pay for half of the transportation costs. We had to wait out a long debate about drivers, gas prices, road conditions, and other (sometimes completely unrelated) topics, before the funds were actually collected.... However, the debate was completely routine, and in the end we had the full support of both the parents and the teachers."
The road to Rio Chico
Francisco Fernandez de Alba, assistant professor of Hispanic studies, met with Sanders when she was first developing the project. A former social worker in a working-class district of Madrid, Fernandez de Alba understood the nuances of grassroots efforts.
"In my view, the added strong point of this project is that it treats the community with respect, responding to its needs, and ... engaging within existing structures to make sure the program continues for years to come," Fernandez de Alba said. "Evelyn does not arrive at the community as an expert with answers to all its problems, but rather becomes part of the community, participating and sharing her knowledge and her work, and just as important, learning from the people with whom she has worked."
Russell Williams, assistant professor of economics, learned about the project when Breann Day was a student in his introductory macroeconomics course last fall. "It is amazing that Breann and her friend conceptualized this project, researched relevant issues, raised money for it themselves, and then carried it out," he later said. "In a liberal arts institution, we hope to produce students who are capable of seeing and doing things in new ways that enhance life on this planet.... There are occasions when we have the opportunity to support and witness experiences during a student's undergraduate years that transform both the student and the social, political or physical environment in important places outside the college."
To help finance their program and give it weight, the two students sought to partner with an established non-profit and work under its fiscal umbrella. Sanders' parents were longtime supporters of SeedTree, a Maine-based organization focusing on reforestation in the developing world. Her father asked Carol Kinsey, SeedTree's executive director, whether she would consider supporting Evelyn's efforts on behalf of Rio Chico in the Manabi Province of Ecuador.
The project was a stretch for SeedTree, which had only recently begun to expand into environmental education, but Kinsey took a chance and awarded the students a grant of $1,000.
"It was Evelyn's own action that won me," said Kinsey. "Evelyn followed [her father's] call with a letter and CD showing her work in developing a computer lab for the school in Rio Chico. I was impressed by her initiative, and her attention to documentation.... Evelyn and Breann both excelled in that."
The students also got donations from family and friends and sought help from their high school, St. James School in Maryland. The school agreed to donate a Roman scale, a dissecting microscope, and lab supplies, and science teacher Doug Otto offered ideas for simple science experiments.
Into the field
Beyond the classroom, the Wheaton students and the children explored their region's natural environment on three field trips, expanding their awareness of conservation. They went on a guided tour of Canta La Piedra, an eco-tourism reserve, where they discussed global ecological awareness and viewed a slideshow on Ecuadorian wildlife. (When they spoke with a visiting biologist there, "the kids were enthralled with his job and asked tons of questions," Day wrote.) They visited the local beach, where they picked up litter, collected marine specimens and studied vernal pools. At an overlook near Rio Chico, they learned how to use telescopes to observe the landscape.
Sanders and Day were aiming high. As they would later write in their project report, they wanted no less than "to help raise a generation of environmentally conscious men and women that have an interest in conservation and the knowledge to do something about it." They were surprised to learn that the children had never been exposed to such basic concepts as water conservation or pollution and its harmful effects on plants and animals. Rio Chico is a simple agricultural community where residents grow all their own food. Two decades ago, many of them were living in the mountains and were self-sufficient.
"They're in a rapidly modernizing world, and they don't have a way to modernize with it," said Day, who noted that the community doesn't even have a trash disposal system. She and Sanders talked to the children about how individual choices affect the environment. "We said, 'Maybe you shouldn't throw your trash on the ground. That's called littering, and that causes pollution.'"
Life is changing for the younger generation of Ecuadorians, but it's a world of contrasts, she said. "They have dirt floors and cell phones; a DVD player, but no running water."
As their stay in Rio Chico drew to an end, Sanders and Day talked with the school's teachers about how the community could take over the program. The teachers hoped to find a local student to teach the classes. Enter Maximiliano Medina NuÃ—Ë˘nez, a former teacher at the school who is now studying reforestation at the University of Puerto Lopez. "Maxi" agreed to teach the science classes twice a week for a year, doing an experiment in every class. In exchange, the Wheaton students would pay his college tuition ($50 a month) from the money they'd raised. They also left funds for field trips and supplies.
Sanders and Day now send Maxi lesson plans via e-mail, and he sends them biweekly progress reports. The classes and the field trips are going well. "We went to the museum, where they gave us an informal lecture about how our ancestors lived, and where the first archeological pieces were found," Maxi recently wrote (in Spanish). "We returned to the Mirador overlook, and we are actually making a small garden at the school where we are planting tomatoes, peppers and herbs."
Day 22: Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007
Today was our last day of class.... We did a dissection of a fish head.... Fish are the primary protein/meat food source in this community, so the kids were familiar with their general anatomy and were not squeamish about touching them....
Tomorrow we are leaving early in the morning.... We said our good-byes to all of our students. They were really sad.... In fact, our second class refused to leave. They sat at their seats and we had to finally make them leave so we could have our last class. It is really sad to be leaving now, but I feel that we have found a good teacher to continue the program, so I know the kids will continue to learn and achieve a solid grounding in science for-if they are lucky enough to get the opportunity to go-high school.
No one knows whether the program will endure beyond the first trial year, but the Wheaton students believe the children have begun to develop "a new global perspective about the environment that will help them protect it."
Adds Carol Kinsey of SeedTree: "Love of nature is the foundation of wanting to preserve it. I am sure Evelyn and Breann have contributed to the love of nature, and the wondrous confidence that we can deepen our knowledge and understanding of nature through observation and experimentation. I congratulate them."
"It's a learning experience," said Sanders. "If it doesn't work out, we will want to figure out why, and if it does, we will want to know what we can do to improve it and implement it in other schools." The students are now making plans to raise money to start programs in two neighboring villages.
The journey continues.
