A Collaboration with

Woodstock Union High School

& The Green Mountain Club

Class: Structured Literacy IV 2019-20

Authors:

Students Kailyn, Kyle, Robert, Shelby and Wyatt

Teacher Julie Brown

GMC Coordinator Lorne Currier

“The improvement of forest trees is the work of centuries. So much more the reason for beginning now.”

~ George Perkins Marsh, native of Woodstock, Vermont and father of the American Conservation Movement

Essential Questions:

• How have the ideas of George Perkins Marsh shaped our community, our state, and the world? Have his writings about reforestation impacted our own daily lives?

• What role does the Green Mountain Club play in promoting Marsh’s ideas?

• What can happen when young people take an active role in “the work of centuries?”

Students Created:

• Students worked with the Green Mountain Club to replace a puncheon bridge on the Appalachian Trail South of the Rt. 12 crossing.

• Students created a multi-media google site for the Green Mountain Club to disseminate training materials for their Trail Adopter's Program. The Green Mountain Club can use this platform in further outreach to schools and volunteers.

• Upon nice weather and as COVID-19 procedures allow, students will blaze WUHSMS's Outdoor Classroom trail following the training instructions they created. Incomplete due to Covid.

Students Learned:

WCSU Portrait of a Graduate Skills and Dispositions:

• Academic Excellence: Students applied and used content knowledge in real world situations by researching blazing techniques and applying that knowledge in the creation of training materials.

• Stewardship: Students demonstrated responsibility for local and global communities through their field work in support of the Green Mountain Club's mission statement: "... to make the Vermont mountains play a larger part in the life of the people by protecting and maintaining the Long Trail System and fostering, through education, the stewardship of Vermont’s hiking trails and mountains."

• Skillful Communication: Students effectively communicated in both digital and face-to-face environments as they collaborated with Mr. Currier in the design process of the training materials.

Course Anchor Standards:

• Course Anchor Standard - Reading: Throughout the year the focus of instruction and assessment was on the development of literacy skills including phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Literacy skills were applied and practiced with authentic texts and for a “real world” purpose through our collaboration with the Green Mountain Club.

Skills:

• Students learned to work in collaborative teams with each other and with the Green Mountain Club to design high quality training materials for Green Mountain Club volunteers.

• Students learned the basics of hiking trail maintenance.

• Students learned to read and interpret Long Trail maps (interrupted due to COVID-19)