The innovative collaboration between AUNE’s Monadnock Ecological Research and Education (MERE) project and Keene High School students will be the topic of a presentation at the New England Environmental Education Alliance’s 2010 conference in Fairlee, Vermont on Friday, October 22.
Dr. Peter Palmiotto, core faculty member and director of AUNE’s conservation biology program and the Monadnock Ecological Research and Education (MERE) project, and Emily Beck, ES ’10, will present.
Since September 2008, MERE has worked with alumnus Marshall Davenson’s advanced placement (AP) environmental science high school classes on a pilot study of Mt. Monadnock’s crevice communities, small pockets of alpine vegetation growing above tree line.
The study, named Adopt-a-Crevice Community, enables these high school students to engage in methods of inquiry-based ecological research. In addition, Marshall uses the research to address science standards both in and out of the classroom. By monitoring the crevice communities, MERE and the volunteer students are tracking the impacts of hiker trampling and climate change on the plants in these vulnerable ecological communities.
MERE’s workshop at the conference will explore the development of the partnership, share sample activities that support curriculum integration, and model the research protocols for the participants with the hope that more schools will join the Adopt-a-Crevice Community project as well as model similar programs on other alpine peaks.