Toshiba America Grant Objectives

Objectives/Planned Outcomes
Soar’s driving goal is to establish an environmental program at Winchester Academy to include all students in grades 6-12 with the high school students taking on the responsibilities of leadership and stewardship in our School community.  To that effect students have these specific objectives for the first year of this program.
To establish base-line air, water, and soil data from the well and grounds on the property.  Part of the base-line data is to assess the health of the trees, amount of erosion, and gauge which projects are most urgent.  This assessment will be performed by the high school students with the help of experts from our partner, the Cacapon Institute.  Students will use both Vernier and Pasco Scientific sensors to collect data and annotate Google Earth with their findings.
To incorporate appropriate technology into the program.  For example, Winchester Academy uses Google Classroom as a Learning Management System.  The grant manager, Deb Stevens, has created  a Watershed Dynamics classroom to organize the Soar program and catalog resources for the students: Cacapon Institute’s e-school with a virtual stream, the GLOBE training modules, GLOBE’s Chesapeake Bay Watershed Dynamics program, National Geographic’s Fieldscope, the Netlogo runoff calculator, Arcview Explorer, Vernier’s Loggerlite software, Pasco’s Sparkvue app, IHMC c-mapping software, and the Google’s suite of office documents, calendars, etc.  Technology is important for this STEM initiative; our objective is to use the wealth of free material creatively to assemble a robust program.
To establish two planting days each year, one in the fall and another in the spring.  The fall planting this first year will focus on planting fifty trees along the road behind the School which leads to a convenience center maintained by Frederick County.  Additionally, during the fall planting, students and volunteers will mulch existing gardens and trees, re-seed eroded areas, and remove Ailanthus trees adjacent to the parking lot.  The spring planting the first year will center on building and planting raised beds along the walls of the Cottages and the front of the main building, installing rain barrels, and assembling the greenhouse.
To incorporate regular seminars, field days, stream assessment, lectures, and workshops into the School’s curriculum.  Over the course of the school-year, speakers and workshops will be scheduled to incorporate programming into the curriculum.  For example, half-day technology seminars will introduce students to the technology mentioned above.  Cacapon Institute will provide speakers to address Watershed Dynamics.  The students will take part in Project Wet and Project Learning tree training workshops.  Students will collect and analyze stream data from local streams within a few miles of the School’s campus.
To create outreach programs and projects.  The high school students will use lessons, activities, and tools to create their own lessons to teach the younger students at Winchester Academy.    For example, the high school students will first receive instruction with an Enviroscape watershed model, review and revise the script, and then instruct students in grades 6-8 with the model.  The training sessions and workshops the high school students experience will fuel their lessons they create for the younger students.  For example, after learning how to collect data with the sensors, the high school students in turn will instruct the younger students.  For Winchester Academy’s environmental program to grow, all of the students in grades 6-12 should have experience using technology and collecting a wide variety of environmental data.