ESCAPE!

Earth Science Community Action ProjEct!

(ESCAPE!)

Overview:

ESCAPE! is a semester-long activity that integrates the topics of the Earth Science curriculum into what is happening in our world and community. The project is a chance for students to learn about the Earth through using an integrated approach of hands-on activities, inquiry-based observations, and project-based curriculum. Earth Science classes will, through observations and research, determine a topic of interest within the Billings community that can be studied and analyzed both in the classroom and in the field.

The goal of the project is three-fold:

1. Help students realize that science is dynamic, happens in real-time, and gives them a platform to relate the content with their world.

2. Help students spur action within themselves and the community

3. Help students realize that they have a voice within their community.

Examples:

-After the City Council Decision to remove Disc Golf from a local park, students submit a report to Billings Parks and Recreation outlining best use of Pioneer Park based on data collected from erosion testing, grass type growth, topographic mapping, and soil charting/mapping.

-After an oil spill in the river, students organize and invite the community to an Oil Check Day along the Yellowstone River where people walk along the banks looking for evidence of oil on the shore. Students use baseline data after comprehensively testing: soil samples for oil content, bird counts, water testing (ph, DO, salinity, nitrates, hydrocarbons, etc)

-After several boulders fell off the Rimrocks, students submit a report outlining the areas where boulder falling is most likely and where it is most likely to impact residents to the City Code Division. The information in the report is based off of: research and mapping of large cracks in Rimrocks, mapping zones of residence proximity to Rimrocks, data from erosion testing, data from slope testing.