Sewee Earth Stewards, The

We've all seen children enthralled when someone brings without an educational animal or when they have the chance to explore upon our public lands. They realize that wide-eyed look of discovery and you faculty of perception that this experience will stay with them for a lengthy time. The Sewee Earth Stewards program is reaching on the outside to students along the coast of southerly Carolina to give them "discovery moments" and, we trust an understanding and respect for the mission of the national wildlife securitys (NWRs) found in their hold backyards.

Cape Romain NWR joined the U Fish and Wildlife Service's Earth Stewards program in 1998 and above the past six years the safety has made Sewee Earth Stewards a vibrant, growing environmental education shoot forward in conjunction with the Sewee Visitor & Environmental Education Center in Awendaw (a joint risk of Cape Romain and Francis Marion National Forest) and the SEWEE (South Eastern Wildlife and Environment Education) Association, the cooperating association for Cape Romain, Waccamaw, and ACE Basin NWR's. The Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto rivers, which give the ACE Basin its name, combine to create single of the largest undeveloped estuaries upon the Atlantic Coast.

Our initial throw out focus was on fifthgrade scholars in a local rural academy After looking at the state educational standards for that age, we decided to focus upon the freshwater wetland habitats abundant in the coastal plain. These areas are important for many migratory birds and our endangered r wolve (Canis rufus). The SEWEE Association hired a teacher to lay together the curriculum for this program and guide us end the initial classes with our learners Two years later, after many days of drollery and pitfalls, we were able to create a solid place of cross-curriculum lesson plans and figure on the outside how to take up to 50 pupils into a swamp for hands-on learning activities. Since 2000 the program has grown from the initial institute with about 50 students to 8 elementary institutes with about 650 students and single middle school with 60 scholars for this school year.

So what do our Sewee Earth Stewards do? over the eight-week curriculum, they read works on animals and their habitats; write stories and poems; learn mathematical conceptions through measuring mounted alligators and calculating water absorption rates in wetlands experiments; discover animal adaptations and behaviors; and identify interdependent wetland flora and fauna. Since Cape Romain is comprised of salt marsh and barrier islands and must be reached by the agency of boat, we have partnered with the Francis Marion National Forest (where the Sewee Center is located) and use a swamp trail upon the mainland as our research site. Students have an initial visit to Ton Swamp and use multiple activities to heighten their observation skills. This visit also gives them the connected thought [i]or[/i] thoughts for the activities over the following weeks upon the animals and plants they ground there. At mid-term, the pupils and teachers spend a day at the Sewee Center where they application of mind several of the habitats lay the foundation of in the coastal plain. They learn about the R Wolf regaining Project and the role that Cape Romain plays in that through visiting our Red Wolf enclosing They experience the raptors of our area by means of participating in a program by dint of the South Carolina Center for Birds of spoil At the end of their studies, they revisit l'on Swamp for their "research" trip, where they find and identify macroinvertebrate aquatic species. by dint of the end of the confine our students know more about alligators, turtle-pigeons snakes, red wolves, migratory birds, birds of spoil invertebrate species, and freshwater wetland habitats.

Two years ago, we were able to expand this program to seventh-graders and create a fresh curriculum focusing on salt marsh and barrier island habitats. These scholars are able to use the concessionaire's ferry to close attention on Bulls Island within Cape Romain and experience individual of the few undeveloped islands along our coast. In 2003 Waccamaw NWR asked the SEWEE Association to expand the elementary program into its region, and we are now hosting the first learners to this relatively new shelter with few modifications.

Since 1999 nearly 1700 scholars have become Sewee Earth Stewards, and more than 700 others will be in the program this year. That's a apportionment of students, teachers, and parents who have had an incredible learning experience with Cape Romain and Waccamaw NWR's and have a better understanding of the part of the refuge system as it relates to southern Carolina.

Karen Beshears is the Executive Director of the SEWEE Association, the cooperating association for the National Wildlife shelters of Coastal South Carolina. She can be reached at sewee. association@earthlink.net.

Copyright University of Michigan, place of education of Natural Resources and Environment Jul-Sep 2005

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