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Students of the curriculum-based research and science program tend to the welfare of the razorback sucker, an endangered fish species. Data collected by the students are used to maintain healthy living conditions in a golf course pond, where the fish are reared for restoration of the species and maintained as a backup brood stock.
joele_doty@nps.gov
Science Education Specialist, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Page, Arizona
Back to Chapter 7: Science Outreach
Students help meet the research needs of the present and future
by Paul E. Super
Bear-proofing garbage cans near Great Smoky Mountains National Park
by Kim Delozier
Parallels in ecological preservation challenges in U.S. and Canadian national parks
by John G. Dennis
Growing and greening the economy of Vietnam: A role for the National Park Service?
by Mike Soukup
Program to preserve Neotropical migrants takes flight
by Scott Hall and Gary Johnston
by Joele B. Doty
"Kids learn first-hand about the threats to their local environment. They have shared this enthusiasm with their parents, and that, in turn, has generated unprecedented community support for preservation of the very resource that is the economic lifeblood of the region."
High school biology students are working hand in hand with park scientists on aquatic and rangeland resource management projects at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (Utah and Arizona). This multifaceted partnership between the Page School District in Arizona and Glen Canyon provides public education on Glen Canyon's fragile resources. The program reaches a high percentage of Navajo and female students who will help cultivate a diverse workforce including resource managers.
The curriculum-based research and science program, in cooperation with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, provides student-acquired data for maintaining local golf course ponds as a viable grow-out facility for fish augmentation. Razorback suckers, endangered fish endemic to the Colorado River Basin, are being reared in the ponds to maintain a backup brood stock and to grow large enough so they are not vulnerable to predation when stocked in the wild. Students routinely monitor water quality, fish growth, and health, and harvest fish for stocking. In 1999, 7 out of 153 of the stocked fish from the golf course ponds were recaptured in Lake Powell and the San Juan River, a high recapture rate for razorback suckers.
Students also contributed to the collection of razorback sucker larvae in Lake Mohave, at the southern end of Lake Mead National Recreation Area, to help the Native Fish Work Group reach their projected capture rate for 1999. They also assisted with pit-tagging bonytail chub, an endangered species, for stocking.
"Students provide a necessary link between the local community and federal land managers."
Students are currently working on two other projects: bacteria monitoring at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and a new rangeland ecology study. They learn the scientific basis for water quality and rangeland management decisions, both highly political and economic issues in the park. Through these courses they are given an opportunity to be involved in an internship with Utah State University, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, and the Bureau of Land Management. A Navajo student completing a rangeland ecology study for the park was told by Navajo elders that "when the wind blew, the land looked like a yellow ocean" because of the swaying knee- and waist-high vegetation. Her goal is to help restore the vegetation and "make this land a yellow ocean once again." She is a recipient of the American Museum of Natural History's Young Naturalist Award 2000 for her telling paper about her rangeland study being completed at Glen Canyon.
These students provide a necessary link between the local community and federal land managers. Students create original presentations on their project work, which they give to park managers, community members, and younger students. More than 1,600 students have attended these presentations. These programs generate enthusiasm and provide outreach education, teaching lessons of stewardship along the way. With a firm foundation in the role of science in land management decisions, the youth of this community will move forward and make strong, environmentally sound decisions that affect not only this park but also other public lands in years to come.
This partnership is dependent on funding from the Arizona Community Foundation, National Park Foundation "Parks as Classrooms," NPS "Parks as Classrooms," and the National Park Foundation–Exxon Corporation "P.A.R.K.S." program. The education program recently received national recognition when it won first place in the Sea World–Busch Gardens Environmental Excellence Awards, Wildlife Partners category, providing further funding for the expansion of this outstanding program. A new "Lake Level Transition Zone Study" project targeted for seventh graders will be made possible in year 2000 by a Toyota TAPESTRY Grant for Teachers allowing a new audience of students to conduct science in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.
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This material is from Natural Resource Year in Review--1999; published by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, August 2000 (publication D-1406)
/YearInReview/yir/yir99/pages/07outreach/01doty_glca.htm
Last Updated: 09/26/00
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